In a federal criminal trial that, believe it or not, had a huge impact on the landscape of Anti-Scientology vs Scientology, the 1 surviving owner of BackPage.com, and Tony Ortega’s old boss, was convicted of one count of money laundering while the jury deadlocked on 84 other counts – mostly involving sex trafficking.
The clue to why this trial had such a huge impact on Anti-Scientology vs Scientology, and anti-cultism in general, is contained in this one paragraph by the AP:
Cambria also said Backpage cooperated with authorities by responding to subpoenas for records and that the assistance provided by the site led to charges against pimps and prostitutes. He showed jurors a May 2011 certificate of appreciation that was issued to Carl Ferrer, Backpage’s chief executive at the time the government shut down the site, and signed by then-FBI Director Robert Mueller for the site’s assistance in an investigation.
The date bolded above is around the time when Tony Ortega began writing every single day about Scientology from the Village Voice blog called Runnin Scared. If you poke around on that blog, you’ll see that Ortega had written a few articles prior to that on Scientology. But the date above is around when he began writing every single day about Scientology.
In about a year, Tony Ortega and his old bosses would ostensibly part ways, and Ortega would set up his own blog with ‘old guard critic’ Scott Pilutik, as his Sancho Panza, in their quixotic quest to “take down Scientology” by completely demonizing it.
Since then, Ortega has never missed a day of writing articles about Scientology – all in the most over-the-top negative ways imaginable. He has blamed Scientology mothers for their daughter’s suicides, blamed Scientology and Scientologist children & spouses for their deaths from seizures and cancer, and has generally deleted anything positive about Scientology, or even benign, in all of his reporting.
It is quite amazing, once you step back and perceive the barrage of negative propaganda Ortega has spewed – every single day – about Scientology and Scientologists.
The Truth is BOTH the Good and the Bad
A Scientologist can be deluded into thinking all positive thoughts about Scientology – only the good.
And an Anti-Scientologist can be just as deluded into thinking all negative thoughts about it – only the bad.
If the truth of anything is BOTH the good and the bad, then over the last 12 years, it is clear that Tony Ortega has proven himself incapable of telling the truth about Scientology.
Ortega’s over-the-top negativity, despite all the Scientologists and Ex-Scientologists he has talked to over the years, all the research he has supposedly done on Scientology, plus the time frame above when the feds began turning on BackPage.com, to my eyes, has been very suspicious.
Tony Ortega’s operation takes a lot of money to run. I believe he lives in New York City with his wife and children.
One must ask: Who has been paying Tony Ortega?
Now that the feds have apparently ended their prosecution of BackPage, will Tony loosen/grow up and begin telling the truth about Scientology for once? Or will we keep witnessing Ortega’s over-the-top delusionally negative crybaby rant about Scientology, every single day, for the next 12 years?
Let’s watch.
Well, you can watch.
Personally, I’m sick of it.
Here’s the Associated Press article referenced above:
And here is an article written by one of Lacey’s employees who has watched these events with BackPage.com unfold since the beginning. This article gives an insightful view into this federal prosecution, and once you look into them, many others.