FRANCE: Religion – France TV, beware of activists without any professional expertise claiming to be experts
The case of Tony Ortega and Backpage.com, a hub for prostitution and escort services
Une version en français a été publiée par CAP/ Liberté de conscience
By Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers
The Village Voice, a cover page claimed by Ortega to be protected by The First Amendment
HRWF (11.03.2026) – Around mid-February, FRANCE TV broadcast a documentary followed by a debate on a minority faith officially active on several continents and eligible for the protection of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration (freedom of religion or belief). The choice of an appropriate documentary and interlocutors with diverse viewpoints and expertise is essential for a fair discussion. That was not so in this case, as the documentary and those who were invited to comment on it after the screening were all oriented in the same direction.
This article is however not an analysis of said TV program. It is part of a series of articles that fact-check the sources of various media outlets addressing controversial issues. In this case, one of the alleged experts in the United States – among others – in the documentary was questionable to say at least.
Why would FRANCE TV air a documentary that uses testimonials of questionable witnesses? Let us go down the rabbit hole in search of the credibility of one of the sources. The twists and turns of our findings will surprise you.
Tony Ortega was editor-in-chief of the Village Voice from 2007 to 2012 at a time when his partner company Backpage.com, a hub involved in prostitution and escort services, was already closely connected to his media outlet. Their managers were later convicted on numerous charges, including trafficking in children and money laundering as a 50-page documented Report of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He could not ignore that as he was employed in the heart itself of the system.
The personal fight of Kamala Harris as a prosecutor against Backpage
On 15 September 2024, Politico published an article titled “Kamala Harris helped shutdown Backpage.com. Sex workers are still feeling the fallout” by Josh Gerstein.
He wrote that in 2010 the digital ads-site Craigslist stopped running “adult-oriented ads” because it was under intense pressure from law enforcement officials and anti-sex-trafficking advocates, and Backpage filled in the void. Backpage.com quickly grew in popularity and revenue but also began to attract lawsuits and investigations over allegations that it was facilitating prostitution.
On 8 May 2020, Politico had already published a very informative paper on the issue under the title “The Sex-Trafficking Case Backpage Tests the Limits of the First Amendment” by Paul Demko. He was writing in his investigation paper:
“Backpage.com quickly became the dominant publisher of escort ads. In 2011, profits topped $50 million, according to the federal indictment. Just three years later, they’d surpassed $130 million. (…) That same year, almost all the state attorneys general sent a letter to Village Voice Media, as the company was now known, demanding that it shutter the adult section of the classified site. A broad coalition of religious groups joined the growing chorus of outrage.”
At that time, Ortega’s company Village Voice was closely working with Backpage the reputation of which was sulfry and making the headlines. The porosity between both companies was obvious and it would be interesting to know what was the personal income of Ortega at that time as editor-in-chief of Village Voice. This might explain the vigorous way with which he took up the defence of Backpage’s managers during their prosecution.
The story of the trio: Backpage, Village Voice and Tony Ortega
Village Voice founded Backpage.com in 2004. From its inception, Backpage.com “seeded” its content with print classified ads from Village Voice publications.
The Village Voice weekly newspaper was purchased in 2006 and renamed itself Village Voice Media Holdings. Its portfolio included over a dozen news weeklies, including LA Weekly, The Village Voice, Denver Westward, and Miami New Times. The company experienced steady growth from 2006 to 2008. Ortega was hired during that prosperous period.
Between 2007 and 2012, the name of Ortega must be kept in mind on any mention of Village Voice as he was its editor-in-chief.
According to the 17 March 2012 issue of the New York Times, attorneys general from 48 states wrote a joint letter to Village Voice Media, pleading with it to get out of the flesh trade. An online petition at Change.org gathered 94,000 signatures asking Village Voice Media to stop taking prostitution advertising.
In September 2012, under public pressure regarding the alleged connection to sex trafficking, a group of Village Voice Media‘s senior managers decided to buy from its current ownership the print publications and digital properties — with the notable exclusion of Backpage.com. Other owners, Larkin and Lacey in particular, retained ownership of Backpage. In the meantime, the FBI was continuing its investigation about the suspected involvement of Backpage.com in minors’ trafficking.
From September 2010 until 2018, when the U.S. seized Backpage.com, it was the internet’s leading forum for prostitution ads.
In April 2018, U.S. federal law enforcement seized and took offline Backpage.com as part of a criminal enforcement action against the website for facilitating prostitution and sex trafficking through its classified ads. The domain was seized and the website ceased to function in its original form.
According to a press release of the US Department of Justice titled “Backpage Principals Convicted of $500M Prostitution Promotion Scheme” and dated 13 November 2023, three former owners of Backpage.com pleaded guilty. A federal jury in Phoenix convicted them of multiple counts of facilitating prostitution business enterprises as well as multiple counts of money laundering, including conspiracy offenses.
According to a Report of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,
“Backpage is the world’s second-largest classified advertising website. Backpage is involved in 73% of all child trafficking reports that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) receives from the general public (excluding reports by Backpage itself). The National Association of Attorneys General has aptly described Backpage as a ‘hub’ of “human trafficking, especially the trafficking of minors.” (Backpage.com’s Knowing Facilitation of Online Sex Trafficking).
Prison sentences against four executives of Backpage.com could only be imposed in and around 2023/2025 but were very severe (*).
Tony Ortega supporting Backpage.com against CNN, The New York Times and others
A Village Voice piece from 6 July 2011 titled “CNN’s Amber Lyon Ambushed Craigslist But She Won’t Talk To The Village Voice” — widely referenced and quoted by later U.S. media reports — shows Ortega’s defense of Backpage.com’s site as a First Amendment platform. He frames criticism as overblown, counterattacks CNN’s accusations with specious arguments and complains about publications of the New York Times and qualifies the anti-Backpage campaign “a panic about a nonexistent epidemic of sexual slavery.”
We can also read in this source that Backpage was a prosperous business as it then had 123 employees to deal with all the categories of ads.
In 2011, an article in Pasadena Now by André Coleman, the managing director, discussed Ortega’s comments defending Backpage.com, defusing his argument that the content of the controversial site was protected by the sacred First Amendment.
And Coleman concluded: “Media should be aware that giving a platform to Tony Ortega instantly destroys their credibility – because no one uses a child sex trafficking apologist as a ‘source’ in their stories.”
On 21 March 2012, Nicholas Kristof published an article in The New York Times titled “Responding to Village Voice on Sex Trafficking” in which he quoted Ortega declaring “We’re First Amendment extremists that way. Always have been” after he had said that people should freely express themselves—sometimes in ways that make other people uncomfortable.
Conclusions
As an American journalist, Ortega could not ignore during his tenure at Village Voice that his media outlet had dangerous financial connections with a criminal organization, Backpage.com. Instead of resigning immediately and denouncing them, he chose to continuously downplay the allegations of sex trafficking associated with Backpage.com and to open the umbrella of the First Amendment.
Ortega is also known as a ferocious anti-Scientology activist. He was presented as an expert in the program of France-TV in mid-February.
Some more research papers of HRWF in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Moldova in 2025:
UK: Religion – Beware of self-proclaimed influencers without any expertise
UK: Religion – Beware of testimonies of former members: the case of J.A.
BELGIUM/UK: The role of the media in the stigmatisation of religious/ belief minorities
EU/MOLDOVA: Beware of Archbishop Markell Michaescu of the Moldovan Orthodox Church
EU/MOLDOVA: Beware of Putin’s lobbyists misusing religion in Brussels
(*) Carl Ferrer: 3 years of probation and ordered to pay $40,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to conspiracy for facilitating prostitution by selling sex ads; the judge emphasized his cooperation and testimony at the 2023 trial. (Septembre 2025 in Arizona)
Michael Lacey (co-founder/founder): 5 years in federal prison and ordered to pay a $3 million fine for an international concealment money-laundering conviction linked to the Backpage operation.
John “Jed” Brunst (former CFO): 10 years in federal prison followed by supervised release for conspiracy and money-laundering convictions.
Scott Spear (former executive vice president): 10 years in federal prison followed by supervised release for conspiracy and money-laundering convictions.
These sentences stem from convictions at or following the 2023 trial in Phoenix.
Photo: The Village Voice, a cover page claimed by Ortega to be protected by The First Amendment
