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  • Geebo 8:00 am on April 23, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Sheriff Tom Dart   

    Cook County Sheriff goes after Backpage’s attorneys 

    Cook County Sheriff goes after Backpage's attorneys

    Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart

    Tom Dart is the Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois. The Cook County Sheriff’s Office is the 2nd largest Sheriff’s Office in the country with Los Angeles County in California being the first. Sheriff Dart has long been an outspoken adversary of the now-defunct Backpage.com. Some may say that Dart was one of the main driving forces behind the push to prove Backpage was just a thinly veiled operation designed to facilitate human trafficking. However, now that Backpage has been seized by the Federal Government, Sheriff Dart doesn’t appear to be done with them.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlfAy8I8K8I%5D

    In a pivotal moment in the fight against Backpage, Sheriff Dart wrote to the major credit card companies and urged them to stop accepting payments for Backpage transactions. The credit card companies complied and cut Backpage off from a major source of revenue. Since Sheriff Dart wrote those letters as the Sheriff of Cook County, Backpage sued Dart claiming that their First Amendment rights had been violated. But after Backpage was seized CEO Carl Ferrer admitted that the lawsuit was a hoax. Not only was the suit dismissed, but Sheriff Dart asked that Backpage be punished for abusing the court system but also asked that Backpage’s attorneys at the time be punished as well. Dart argued that Backpage’s attorneys should have known that Backpage was lying to the court but a judge denied that request.

    More recently, Sheriff Dart has renewed his bid to have the Backpage’s former law firm punished as new information is said to have come to light. Dart asserts that testimony given by Ferrer indicates that the law firm was well aware of Backpage’s criminal activity. According to Ferrer, the law firm that represented Backpage allegedly advised them on a number of legal issues including advice on handling cryptocurrency which Ferrer previously admitted to was part of Backpage’s money laundering operation.

    Is Backpage’s former law firm just collateral damage in the legal fight against Backpage or did they have knowledge of what Backpage was really up to?

     

  • Geebo 9:15 am on June 4, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , Sheriff Tom Dart   

    Backpage lawsuit against Cook County Sheriff dismissed 

    Backpage lawsuit against Cook County Sheriff dismissed

    Cook County (Ill.) Sheriff Tom Dart oversees law enforcement in the second most populous county in the country. He has long been an outspoken opponent of the website formerly known as Backpage. Not only did he dedicate a large part of his career to help rescue victims of Backpage’s trafficking, he also often took to the media to try to inform the public about how much of a menace Backpage actually was. Sheriff Dart was obviously relieved when Backpage was finally shuttered.

    One of Sheriff Dart’s more controversial acts against Backpage happened in 2015 when Sheriff Dart wrote to both MasterCard and VISA requesting they stop letting Backpage use their cards as forms of payment for Backpage’s adult ads. The problem with this is Sheriff Dart did not write to these companies as a private citizen but instead as the Cook County Sheriff by using official county letterhead. Backpage saw this as a violation of their right to free speech and a government intrusion. A lawsuit was then filed against Dart by Backpage and an injunction was placed on Sheriff Dart stating he could no longer contact the credit card companies. However, the damage had already been done as the two companies ceased doing business with Backpage. Many consider this decision by VISA and MasterCard as the beginning of the end for Backpage.

    Now, with Backpage being seized by the Federal Government and former CEO Carl Ferrer admitting that Backpage was well aware of its role in human trafficking, the lawsuit against Sheriff Dart has been dismissed. This past Thursday, a federal judge dismissed the suit with Sheriff Dart claiming that the dismissal contained a “certain level of vindication”. While we may not have always agreed with Sheriff Dart’s way of doing things, we’re happy to see that Backpage won’t be able to claim a victory over this tireless defender of the people.

     

  • Geebo 9:22 am on April 27, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , Sheriff Tom Dart   

    Leading Backpage opponent wants lawsuit dropped 

    Leading Backpage opponent wants lawsuit dropped

    Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart

    Cook County (Ill.) Sheriff Tom Dart was one of the leading voices in the fight against Backpage. Not only did Sheriff Dart do everything within his power to combat the human trafficking committed through Backpage by conducting various stings and rescue operations, but he also stepped outside of his job to convince credit card companies to stop accepting payments for Backpage ads. While it wasn’t a deathblow for Backpage, it did hurt them where it mattered most, in the wallet. Backpage fought back against Dart by filing a lawsuit over lost profits due to Dart’s interference and had a restraining order placed against him which prevented Dart from further contacting the credit card companies.

    Now, with the federal seizure of Backpage, Sheriff Dart is asking that the lawsuit against him be dismissed. Dart is now arguing that since Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer has admitted that Backpage was predicated on human trafficking and money laundering this should render Backpage’s lawsuit against Dart null and void. Dart himself called the lawsuit a fraud and that it was not based in fact or law.

    While some of Sheriff Dart’s tactics can be considered questionable, the closure of Backpage could not have been done without him. Because of his constant vocal opposition to Backpage in the country’s second most populous county, the Backpage situation may never have received the media attention it did and we would still probably be trying to make people more aware of the problem. Sheriff Dart should be commended for his work against Backpage trafficking and this suit should be dropped immediately since it came to light that Backpage was complicit in the sex trade all along.

     

  • Greg Collier 3:11 pm on August 20, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , MasterCard, , , Sheriff Tom Dart, Visa   

    Defending what’s Wrong for the Right Reasons 

    It’s been many years since Geebo removed its personal ads section and I’m happy to say that, over the years, many other sites have followed. But not all of them. One, in particular, has continued to successfully fight legal efforts to shut down the site’s personals section, considered a facilitator of illegal prostitution and sex-trafficking industries.

    That site is Backpage.com and, under most circumstances, I’d use some pretty choice words to express my feelings about the site and its legal team, which invokes the First Amendment to protect its sex-ad revenue pipeline, even at the expense of human lives.

    But this week, as Backpage finds itself back in court over another effort to derail the questionable ads, I find myself having to support Backpage in its legal battle – not because I support what they do but because America is a land of laws and I believe that even the government – especially the government – should abide by them.

    In this case, the government comes in the form of Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County, Illinois. In his effort to cut off the lifeline of Backpage’s advertising business, he sent letters to both MasterCard and Visa, calling on them to cease business with the site over concerns about the adult services section of the site – and a short time later, they did just that.

    To me, those letters sure do feel like government overreach, a threat by the head of the law-enforcement agency of the second-largest county in the nation. Naturally, Backpage wants a court injunction forcing Dart to rescind the letters, which is what a federal judge will be considering during a hearing later this week, according to USA Today.

    Meanwhile, the site has filed suit against the sheriff, accusing him of violating free speech rights of individuals who use the service to post ads, according to the Wall Street Journal.

    As much as I would love to see Visa and MasterCard pull the plug on Backpage once and for all, just as American Express has already done, the credit card companies would need to decide that out of moral conscience or what’s best for business or even and organized public pressure campaign. But this sheriff should not be allowed to bully the largest credit card companies a key player in the financial engine that keeps the dollars flowing in and out of a business, so long as that business is operating within the law.

    It pains me to note Backpage’s success in fighting off legal efforts to take it down, but, by all rights, this latest effort should be a clean win for them again. The courts should grant the injunction and force Sheriff Dart to rescind his letters.

    If that happens, I can only hope that MasterCard and Visa executives decide that doing business with Backpage isn’t worth the headaches that come with their relationship and they’ll just keep those ties severed for good.

    Then, I’ll truly feel like I’m back on the side of good again.

     

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