Tony Ortega
Tony Ortega is an anti-religious hate blogger with a history of defending child sex trafficking, ridiculing victims of sexual assault and publishing fabricated “news.” Tony Ortega has no understanding of Scientology, no experience with the religion, and stalks its members.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
- Tony Ortega was employed by the owner of Backpage.com, the world’s largest online marketplace for child sex trafficking before it was seized by the FBI in 2018. Ortega so vociferously championed Backpage that The New York Times dubbed Ortega the sex trafficking site’s “attack dog.” Backpage executives were convicted in November 2023.
- Ortega has an extensive and well-documented history of ridiculing and victim-shaming survivors of rape, sexual violence and sexual exploitation.
- Ortega has a record of publishing false stories. Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) deplored how, in one such fabricated story, Ortega had “betrayed readers’ trust at a time when the media’s credibility is at an ebb.” “Let us count the ways in which this is wrong,” CJR wrote.
- As an unemployed hate blogger, Ortega spends his days mocking, stalking and harassing people of faith, whom he has described as “tithe-making suckers” who subscribe to the “Holey Bible” and are “fair game” for people “to make fun of” because God is “a small-minded wanker” and “a conniving, underhanded and petty biatch.”
- Far from being an “expert,” Tony Ortega has never been a Scientologist, has never been inside a Church of Scientology and has no knowledge of the Scientology religion. Ortega systematically stalks and tries to “out” Scientologists in their personal and professional lives, and his false reporting takes the form of threats and harassment.
THE FULL STORY:
1. Tony Ortega was employed by the owner of Backpage.com, the world’s largest online marketplace for child sex trafficking before it was seized by the FBI in 2018. Ortega so vociferously championed Backpage that The New York Times dubbed him the sex trafficking site’s “attack dog.”
During Ortega’s tenure as editor-in-chief at Village Voice Media, which owned and was funded by Backpage, underage girls were murdered after being sold for sex on the site. Source: Backpage.com Founders, Others Indicted on Prostitution-Related Charges
A 2018 Senate Subcommittee found that 73% of all child trafficking reports received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children involved Backpage. Source: Backpage.com’s Knowing Facilitation of Online Sex Trafficking—Report
Ortega vehemently defended Backpage and ridiculed those exposing it, prompting The New York Times to label Ortega the sex trafficking site’s “attack dog.” As part of his work propagandizing the site, Ortega downplayed sex trafficking as “a mass panic,” “national fantasy” and “small problem” and targeted those exposing what he called a “nonexistent epidemic of sexual slavery.” “Underage prostitution,” Ortega wrote, “is nothing like what is being trumpeted.” Source: Responding to Village Voice on Sex Trafficking
The site’s founders—whom Ortega boasted were “smart enough to start Backpage”—were criminally charged. One committed suicide before trial and the other—along with two Backpage executives—were convicted on November 16, 2023. Source: 2 Backpage Execs Found Guilty on Prostitution Charges; Another Convicted of Financial Crime
A Pasadena Now article detailed Ortega’s involvement in the site. Source: Enough With the Sex Trafficking Ads
See:
- Young
Women Murdered After Posting to Escort Site, Police Say
- Justice Department Leads Effort to Seize Backpage.com, the Internet’s Leading Forum for
Prostitution Ads, and Obtains 93-Count Federal Indictment
- Backpage Founder Faces 2nd Trial Over What Prosecutors Say Was a Scheme to Sell Sex Through Ad Sales
2. Long before his tenure at Backpage, Tony Ortega had a documented history of ridiculing and victim-shaming survivors of rape, sexual violence and sexual exploitation.
Even before Ortega was working on behalf of Backpage—downplaying child sex trafficking as a “nonexistent” “mass panic” and “national fantasy” with a “catchy name”—he blatantly revictimized two teenage survivors of rape. Source: CNN’s Amber Lyon Ambushed Craigslist—But She Won’t Talk to The Village Voice
In 2002, after two girls were abducted at gunpoint, raped and narrowly escaped being murdered by their rapist, Ortega mocked them. He published an article fabricating that the two survivors would soon star in a Hollywood reality show—one in which victims were forced to flee sex offenders in search of safety. Source: Survivor Rapist Show Hoax
Two years later, when a local television station aired an investigative series exposing pedophiles, Ortega attacked and ridiculed the program, once again finding “humor” in sexual violence against minors. He wrote that the value of the investigative series was in demonstrating that a pedophile should “never believe a 14-year-old chat room skank.” Source: Hard Sell
Further demonstrating Ortega’s sympathy for sexual abusers, he described the investigation as a “repugnant” effort to “hunt down Internet pedophiles by luring them.” Source: Goodbye, Real World
Ortega further wrote: “Channel 5 has now established beyond a doubt that if your 14-year-old is hankering for oral sex and a six-pack of beer from a flabby geriatric, satisfaction is just a few keystrokes away.” Source: Hard Sell
3. Ortega has a history of publishing false stories.
After Tony Ortega authored an article falsely announcing that two teen rape victims would star in a sex offender “reality” show, the publication that ran the false story was forced to issue a retraction. Source: Survivor Rapist Show Hoax
The Daily Cannibal, a media watchdog website, wrote: “Tony Ortega takes two teenagers, already brutally raped by thugs, and editorially sodomizes them by appropriating their identities, putting lies in their mouths, and pimping them as shameless opportunists.”
Three years later, Ortega wrote another fabricated story, claiming that Kansas City records showed that a Confederate gravesite was found during the building of a new arena. The story was entirely false.
The press secretary for then-Missouri Governor Matt Blunt said she was “extremely disappointed that a publication purporting to be a news outlet would print a satirical, fantastical article and not identify it as such.”
Columbia Journalism Review wrote: “Let us count the ways in which this is wrong… [Ortega’s] spoof took cheap
shots at politicians, put words in their mouths, and betrayed readers’ trust at a time when the media’s credibility
is at an ebb.… Journalism has enough problems without inventing pranks that suck in both citizens and government
officials.” Source: Journo Hoax Works a Little Too Well
4. Tony Ortega is an unemployed hate blogger who spends his days mocking, stalking and harassing people of faith.
In the same way Ortega jokes about rape victims, he laughs about violence and harm done to Scientologists. On December 14, 2015, Erin McMurtry, an anti-Scientologist, drove her car through the front of the Church of Scientology Austin, nearly mowing down the Church’s nursery. Fortunately, no children were hurt. Tony Ortega joked on his blog: “Car turns Austin Scientology org into a drive-in.”
Ortega goes further. He stalks Scientologists on social media, harasses the bosses of Scientologists in an effort to place their jobs at risk, and posts cheerfully about recently deceased Scientologists, blaming their religion for their passing while mocking their grieving families.
But Ortega’s anti-religious bigotry isn’t limited to Scientology—it extends to Christianity, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and all people of faith.
Ortega wrote an article in 2003 questioning whether there had been: “Another hare-brained scheme cooked up by the Christian kookocracy.” Source: The Land of Ahs
In 2004, he ridiculed religious people as “tithe-making suckers.” Source: Unholy Roller
In 2005, he mocked Christian scripture as the “Holey Bible” and—between 2020 and 2021—he called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “fair game” for people “to make fun of” and insulted God as “a conniving, underhanded and petty biatch” and “a small-minded wanker.” Source: Holey Bible
Ortega’s obvious disdain for all religions and people of faith makes him inherently biased on any matters pertaining to religion.
5. Far from being an “expert,” Tony Ortega has never been a Scientologist, has never been inside a Church of Scientology and has no knowledge of the Scientology religion. Ortega systematically stalks and tries to “out” Scientologists in their personal and professional lives, and his false reporting takes the form of threats and harassment:
- Ortega contacts the employers of Scientologists to “reveal” their religious affiliation and spread defamatory lies in an effort to place their jobs at risk.
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Ortega stalks Scientologists on social media and reposts their messages out of context to malign them, including a video posted by a 14-year-old girl.
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Ortega attempts to sabotage the campaigns of Scientologists running for public office, writing local papers to demand they print and denounce the candidate’s religion.
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Ortega “breaks the news” of events in the private lives of Scientologists, including personal tragedies, to expose them to hate speech.
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Ortega sends harassment emails to the family members of Scientologists, inquiring about their personal lives.
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Ortega harasses journalists who cover Scientology artists with no anti-Scientology bigotry included in their stories.
- Ortega prints details about the personal finances of individual Scientologists by name.
CONCLUSION:
Tony Ortega’s disturbing history, discredited reporting and fundamental conflicts of interest should preclude using him as a source under any circumstance.
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