Carl Ferrer
Recently we wrote about a series of emails exchanged by Carl Ferrer and a woman described in court documents only as “P.R.” As illustrative as their carelessness recounted in our last post was, Backpage and its heartless attitude toward its victims didn’t stop there. And neither did the story of “P.R.”
On July 14, 2012, Carl Ferrer received another email from the same woman.
It stated: “ Would you please take the edit block off my ad.
Through our examination into Backpage’s fruitless and ultimately vain attempts to shirk the laws in their greed-driven crime spree to generate hundreds of millions in personal profit through the highly illegal human sex trafficking trade, we’ve come across what we believe to be evidence more than sufficient to prove the state’s case against its ringleaders.
Take for example, the example Backpage set it its early years. Between around September 2010 and October 2012, Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer became aware that a particular Backpage customer, known as “P.
Just when you think the seemingly endless legacy of filth Backpage has produced over the years couldn’t possibly get any more grotesque, a story like today’s pops up in the headlines.
Tony Ortega
As with so many stories that seem to circle the spectacularly corrupt orbit of Tony Ortega, this one started with a with an unscrupulous operator who used his position to victimize others much in the way Tony, ever the opportunistic hustler, built his so-called career — using and abusing others for his own gain.
For all his bluster and fake ‘tough guy’ bravado, Tony Ortega really wants you to believe he’s a victim. This victim playing strategy is one that’s been used by online trolls and bullies since the early days of the Internet.
Simply put, ‘playing the victim card’ is the fabrication or exaggeration of victimhood for a variety of reasons such as to justify abuse of others or to manipulate others. Sounds like Ortega so far, right?
In what many are calling the biggest judgement against a Backpage pimp to date, this Monday brought news that East Texas man who trafficked children and adults during an “eight-year reign of terror” in North Houston was ordered to serve a life sentence in federal prison and pay nearly $1 million in restitution to multiple victims.
Read that again — a lifetime sentence and one million dollars in restitutions.
David Mearis, 45, was convicted by a federal jury in October 2019 of forcing several girls into prostitution and grooming teen victims into adulthood so he could peddle them online for profit using Backpage.
Tony Ortega was once a hack tabloid writer trying pass himself off as a hot shot professional in New York. That, however, was a lie that couldn’t last long.
Ortega’s bizarre masquerade was soon exposed and Ortega was unmasked, revealing him to be the ridiculous little ‘emperor with no clothes’ we always knew he was.
These days Tony Ortega fills his days by pretending to be busy, living out his sad days as unemployed blogger in Scarsdale, New York.
Tony Ortega
Over the past few posts we’ve been considering the consequences for victims of human sex trafficking, particularly as it impacts its younger victims. The callousness of Backpage execs and its depraved cheerleader, Tony Ortega, in the face of the vast amount of human suffering they are personally responsible cannot be overstated.
As we explained, while Backpage may be dismantled the harmful, long-lasting effects of the sort of human trafficking Tony Ortega tried to convince was nothing more than a ‘radical expression of First Amendment rights’, continue to do harm.
In an interview with a popular women’s magazine, an actress explained how she has been working as an undercover FBI agent fighting against child sex trafficking on sites like Backpage.
During her time undercover the star participated in half a dozen child-sex stings around the world as an unpaid volunteer.
She explained her involvement to help the FBI fight child sex traffickers like Backpage by saying that good people are the only ones who will do anything about it.
Barry Schiff
If it’s one thing we believe in here at the blog, it’s that tougher sentencing for those who coerced, threatened or tricked young women and underage girls into participating in the Backpage sex trafficking ring should be the rule, rather than the exception.
Maybe that’s why this story we read over the weekend restored a measure of hope to us that Backpage pimps, and their editorializing apologists like Tony Ortega, are increasingly finding judges taking a zero tolerance approach when it comes to Backpage’s illegal sex trade.
Tony Ortega is perhaps the best example of hypocrisy and arrogance in modern “journalism”. Here is a man who for years falsely accused L Ron Hubbard and all Scientologists of endorsing and condoning pedophilia while he himself had made 90% of his paycheck off of Backpage sex traffic advertising, which led to horrific instances of child rape and murder.
If you look at Tony Ortega’s history (not the one he tries to present the outside world), his economic connections (he’s broke and unemployed), and his defense of the notorious BackPage.
“_We made a decision some time ago that the only way we’d continue to stay in this game was to focus not on the same old political essay writing but on original reporting, surprising our readers by not being predictable, and by doing our best to piss off everyone — right, left, and center.”_Tony Ortega Editor-in-Chief, Village Voice
When Backpage had its domain seized by Federal authorities recently it may have appeared to be a sudden unexpected twist nobody saw coming.
