Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacey, James Larkin
Anthony “Tony” Ortega
After Backpage.com created the marketplace, Tony Ortega helped sex traffickers create and develop the content of their ads on the site so they could profit from each ad.
When law enforcement began to scrutinize the illegal activity occurring on Backpage, Ortega’s bosses took steps to help sex traffickers create ads that would avoid detection by law enforcement so that they could continue to profit from those ads.
Over the past decade or more, marketing for prostitution began to migrate to the Internet, as website operators have sought to enable buyers and sellers of sex to maintain their anonymity and minimize the risk of detection by law enforcement.
Named for the infamous “Back Page” of the Village Voice newspaper, Backpage.com became the primary destination for buying and selling illegal commercial sex online, accounting for 80 percent or more of all revenue from online commercial sex advertising in the United States.
By the time the Feds shutdown Tony Ortega’s former employers’s Backpage.com, it was largest source of online human sex trafficking in the United States.This chilling fact, seemingly the one subject upon which Tony Ortega is conspicuously silent, is not disputed.
That Backpage conspirators generated $135 million in revenue, the vast majority of which was generated from illegal ads for sex on the Backpage,is not disputed.
The facts above are not merely coincidental.
Readers of this blog will be familiar with the growing number of lawsuits filed in states across the nation against Backpage.com and sex-trafficking syndicate that was running for years, victimizing countless women and underage girls.
Such syndicate was Tony Ortega’s employer and Ortega was a well known Backpage.com apologist.
Today we present to you select portions of actual court documents laying out the factual allegations of the crimes. These documents are not an easy read for the feint of heart but we feel the evil detailed herein needs to be exposed for what it is.
Recently we reported on the history making case filed against Tony Ortega’s ex-employers earlier this year in which a young girl allegedly suffered multiple rapes through the sex trafficking made possible by James Larkin’s and Michael Lacey’s Backpage platform.
We can now reveal that while that particular case remains groundbreaking, it isn’t the only one filed against Backpage. Across the nation those making claims of victimization at the hands of Backpage (and Tony Ortega’s propaganda on behalf of his employers) and their sex trafficking syndicate are rising up to seek legal retribution.
The Village Voice was having problems. The paper had just yet another round of layoffs as part of a nationwide cull by its parent company. Its future prospects were looking so dim, the Voice began to rely almost exclusively on sex and drug ads to stay solvent. It was so desperate for revenue that it had just filed a lawsuit against Time Out NY for using the phrase “Best in NYC.
Tony Ortega was bent out of shape when the “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” campaign went viral. He felt compelled (or perhaps ordered by his masters at Backpage dot com) to squash it. Ortega’s futile propaganda to suppress the campaign only proved his support of sex trafficking.
Ortega made it very clear where he stood when he wrote:
Congress hauled in Craigslist on September 15, 2010. There, feminists, religious zealots, the well-intentioned, law enforcement, and social-service bureaucrats pilloried the online classified business for peddling “100,000 to 300,000” underage prostitutes annually.
We read yesterday about the story of K.R. and how at the hands of a longtime Backpage user known as ‘Alonso’ she was trafficked and sold repeatedly for sex. In her suit in Alabama K.R. alleged she was consistently threatened, physically abused and forced her to take intoxicating agents including illegal drugs and alcohol.
From May 28, 2013, until approximately August 8, 2013, Alonso reserved rooms on thirty-seven (37) different nights in various hotels to carry out the sex trafficking venture Backpage had made possible.
On Thursday, May 31, 2018, a Chicago federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart who requested credit card companies not to do business with Backpage dot com.
James Larkin and Michael Lacey accused the Sheriff of interfering with the Backpage business. The judge ruled Thomas Dart’s action was protected by the First Amendment. The appeals court reversed that ruling, but Judge Tharp granted Dart’s motion to dismiss the suit.
Why are folks over on Tony Ortega’s blog suddenly calling him a low class drama queen? I mean, it’s not like they are wrong but seeing these comments popping up on Tony Ortega’s hate blog got us thinking. Have Tony’ Ortega’s readers finally had enough of his unfiltered, immature garbage?
Apparently it all started when a longtime “fan” of his announced that he was fed up with the way Tony Ortega runs his operation.
Yesterday we wrote about the unique case currently underway in Florida courts brought by Florida Abolitionists, Inc. It alleges Backpage knowingly broke human trafficking laws and caused tremendous drains on the resources of the agency in its fight to end modern human slavery.
Interestingly, the lawsuit makes explicit mention of an attempted ruse pulled by Backpage officials (James Larkin and Michale Lacey) shortly before their refusal to testify at a Subcommittee hearing on the matter in January 2017.
We ended our post yesterday noting how both Tony Ortega and his atheist, activist wife, Arielle Silverstein, are known liars. While being identified as a source of ‘bad faith’ information might not even register in atheist community, being a liar and calling yourself a journalist is and remains an unforgivable sin.
Not only does Tony Ortega often fabricate from whole cloth the “facts” he reports, he also insidiously inserts his own views into his reporting.
