Carl Ferrer, CEO of the Backpage classified sales site, was arrested yesterday over allegations that adult and child victims have been coerced into prostitution through ads placed on the site. Documents filed in the case include statements from minors, one of them claiming she was forced to become a prostitute at the age of 13.
Ferrer was arrested after investigators raided his Dallas headquarters. He is now on bail, facing extradition to California where there is a warrant for his arrest on charges of pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping. Backpage’s two major shareholders have also been charged with conspiracy.
According to California law, the felony of pimping is defined as making money from prostitutes or soliciting customers for prostitution.
Backpage, which operates in cities worldwide, offers the usual spread of classified ads, but the arrest warrant claims that 99 percent of its $29 million dollar revenue from January 2013 to March 2015 came from its adult services sections.
California attorney general Kamala Harris said:
“Backpage and its executives purposefully and unlawfully designed Backpage to be the world’s top online brothel.”
Backpage and Ferrer have had numerous brushes with the law in the past. In a 2014 murder case in Indiana, police said that Darren Vann, a multiple sex offender, strangled a 19-year-old girl he met through Backpage.
And in March this year, the New York Times reported on a congressional hearing, which found the site had deliberately changed the wording of some ads to conceal offers of sex with minors. Ferrer was subpoenaed to answer questions on child sex-trafficking, but failed to attend the hearing.
Yesterday’s latest New York Times report features an interview with Carol Robles-Román, president and chief executive of Legal Momentum, a women’s defense initiative. She said she had been lobbying for action against Backpage for the past two years for hosting ads that promoted sex with children, and told the reporter:
“They’re like the McDonald’s of trafficking. They made it so easy.”
Watch this ABC News investigation into girls who say they were sold for sex on Backpage.
Featured image from YouTube video.
