releases: https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/mccaskill-committee-threatens-criminal-contempt-of-backpagecom
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/mccaskill-committee-threatens-criminal-contempt-of-backpagecom | McCaskill committee threatens criminal contempt of Backpage.com | 2015-11-19 | 2015 | 2015-11 | Democrat | House | MO | Claire McCaskill | M001170 | www.mccaskill.senate.gov | legacy | McCaskill committee threatens criminal contempt of Backpage.com Thursday, November 19, 2015 By: Chuck Raasch WASHINGTON A Senate investigating committee investigating sex trafficking on the Internet may recommend criminal contempt charges against a website where the majority of online advertising for sex appears. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose ranking member is Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., had subpoenaed Carl Ferrer, CEO of Backpage.com, to appear on Thursday. Ferrer did not show up, and McCaskill and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, chair of the subcommittee, threatened the rare action. If Backpage thinks they are going to go quietly in the night, they are sadly mistaken, McCaskill said. The contretemps also stem from Backpages refusal to turn over documents subpoenaed by the committee that show how the group screens for age in order to prevent underage children from being trafficked for sex. An attorney for the website said Thursday that Backpage believed the issues raised by the investigative committee, including suspected sex trafficking of minors, should be handled by the courts. Portman said it had been at least 20 years since the Senate had considered contempt proceedings against a witness for failing to cooperate. Normally, that involves civil contempt, he said, but he and McCaskill said they considered Backpages lack of cooperation and the subject matter serious enough to ask the Justice Department to bring criminal contempt charges. Portman said that decision would be made within a few days. Liz McDougall, an attorney for Backpage, issued a statement saying that her client and the senators fundamentally disagree about the limits on governments authority to investigate a First Amendment-protected entity like Backpage.com. McDougall also accused the committee of political theatrics that confused Backpage.coms request to have this matter decided by a proper judicial court with an attempt to evade the issues. This is not the case. She invoked former Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., saying that the committee that was home to the darkest era of abusing congressional power to conduct public hearings should welcome a legal solution. In the hearing, McCaskill told the story of a 15-year-old girl who walked into Cardinal Glennon Childrens Hospital in St. Louis to ask for help. McCaskill said the girl told authorities that she and four other girls, ages 12-18, had been sold for sex at truck stops across Missouri, Florida, Texas and New Mexico for almost two months, and that she had been trafficked using Backpage.com. Throughout the subcommittees investigation, we have received information indicating that Backpage has built a hugely successful business in part by posting advertisements of children and other victims of human trafficking on its website, McCaskill said. The websites First Amendment defense claims, she said, fall apart upon allegations that the site edits some ads in order to disguise the age of minors being advertised for sex. The bottom line is if they are in any way facilitating the selling of children they are guilty of a crime, McCaskill said after the hearing. We know they are editing, we know that they are giving the folks that are supposed to be checking these ads instructions on what to do and what not to do, and we would know a lot more if they didnt stonewall every investigation that has occurred. Dallas-based Backpage was sold in 2014 to a Dutch company for an undisclosed amount. Ferrer stayed on as CEO. The Dallas Business Journal described it then as having 160 employees and a presence in 88 countries, and witnesses at Thursdays hearings estimated its annual revenue as at least $130 million, much of it from the sex trade. Backpage actually is the first place that (the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children) searches when we have a missing child case, said Yiota Souras, the organizations general counsel. Print Email Tweet | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |