Backpage sues sheriff over lost credit card payments for sex ads

The embroiled website Backpage has won a temporary restraining order against Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, preventing the anti-sex trafficking crusader from “lobbying the credit card companies to block their cards from being used on backpage.com.”

The company’s lawsuit comes less than a month after Dart sent a letter to the CEOs of MasterCard and Visa, arguing Backpage plays a role in furthering sex trafficking by hosting ads for under-age prostitutes. A few days later, the companies decided to stop processing transactions from Backpage.

Lawyers for Backpage claim Dart, in sending his request, “achieved his purpose through false accusations, innuendo, and coercion.” The suit also said Dart’s actions adversely affected Backpage’s business and violated freedom of speech laws. Backpage wants Dart to retract his letters to the credit card companies and requests compensation for lost revenue and punitive damages “to provide punishment and deterrence for Sheriff Dart’s intentional conduct recklessly indifferent to protected rights.”

Dart, who denied coercing the companies, argues Backpage has no First Amendment interest of its own at stake, nor is the content in question protected. A judge is expected to hear the first arguments in the case in the next few weeks.

The Chicago-area sheriff is well known for thinking outside the box when it comes to fighting crime. In 2009, he made Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list for his innovative approach to law enforcement. In 2011, he launched an annual “National Day of Johns Arrests,” a two-week, nationwide operation targeting the clients of prostitutes and pimps. His office leads the nation in its focus on the demand side of prostitution, arresting more buyers of sex than sellers. Nationally, more than 90 percent of those arrested in the sex industry are prostitutes.

Cook County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Benjamin Breit said Dart contacted the credit card companies after years of seeking Backpage’s assistance in bringing traffickers to justice.

“Unfortunately, this outreach was met with little more than delaying tactics and empty promises,” Breit said.

In response, Backpage insists the company has become a “valuable resource” for police in their efforts to fight sex trafficking. Backpage also noted the website uses a filter that “blocks or removes over a million ads per month,” and reports suspicious ads that may involve minors to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

But Yiota Souras, general counsel for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said, “Backpage’s reporting is not conducted in good faith.” Souras said Backpage does not always remove ads or prevent new ads from being posted, even after parents inform them their teenage daughters are being sold on the site.

In 2012, Backpage accounted for nearly 70 percent of prostitution advertising among five websites that carry such ads in the United States. The ads earn the company more than $22 million annually, according to a 2012 estimate by AIM Group, a media research and consulting company.

Earlier this year, a federal judge in Boston threw out a lawsuit against Backpage alleging the web site was designed to facilitate sex trafficking. Judge Richards Stearns said web service companies are immune from liability for crimes committed by users. Earlier this month, the Massachusetts attorney general urged Backpage to remove its adult section after two men allegedly killed an escort they found through a listing on the website.

Despite court rulings in its favor, sex trafficking survivors like 24-year-old Alissa often reserve their greatest anger not for their pimps, but for the web company they say looked the other way.

“You can’t buy a child at Walmart, can you?” Alissa told New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof. “No, but you can go to Backpage and buy me on Backpage.”