News
SeattleCrime.com: Seattle Weekly Ads Linked to Juvenile Prostitution Charges
Editor's note: Last week, we linked to SeattleCrime.com's report that the Seattle Police Department said Seattle Weekly lowballed the number of juvenile prostitutes SPD rescued.
Seattle Weekly managing editor Caleb Hannan called us last week to say that any inaccurate numbers were due to incorrect information from the police department. "SPD got the numbers wrong," Hannan said.
Seattlecrime.com's Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, who's been reporting on a Seattle Weekly series that attempts to debunk the idea that juvenile prostitution is a major problem (the Weekly's owner, Village Voice Media, is under fire for allowing pimps to sell underage girls through VVM's Backpage.com service, which helps fund the Weekly ) is doing a series highlighting some of the many local cases linking Backpage.com to juvenile prostitution and sex slavery.
VVM has defended itself against the charges on First Amendment grounds, arguing that Backpage.com "exists solely so that people can freely express themselves—sometimes in ways that make other people uncomfortable. We're First Amendment extremists that way. Always have been."
Today, Jonah links to a 2010 case in which a pimp who was previously convicted of child rape and child molestation, allegedly imprisoned a 16-year-old girl in a Bellevue Red Lion, forced her to take sexually suggestive photos for an "adult escort" ad on Backpage.com, and made her have sex with numerous men for money. The pimp also allegedly anally raped the girl and forced her to have anal sex with clients. "She personally received no payment for any of the sexual services she provided."
Read the whole police report here.
Seattlecrime.com's Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, who's been reporting on a Seattle Weekly series that attempts to debunk the idea that juvenile prostitution is a major problem (the Weekly's owner, Village Voice Media, is under fire for allowing pimps to sell underage girls through VVM's Backpage.com service, which helps fund the Weekly ) is doing a series highlighting some of the many local cases linking Backpage.com to juvenile prostitution and sex slavery.
VVM has defended itself against the charges on First Amendment grounds, arguing that Backpage.com "exists solely so that people can freely express themselves—sometimes in ways that make other people uncomfortable. We're First Amendment extremists that way. Always have been."
Today, Jonah links to a 2010 case in which a pimp who was previously convicted of child rape and child molestation, allegedly imprisoned a 16-year-old girl in a Bellevue Red Lion, forced her to take sexually suggestive photos for an "adult escort" ad on Backpage.com, and made her have sex with numerous men for money. The pimp also allegedly anally raped the girl and forced her to have anal sex with clients. "She personally received no payment for any of the sexual services she provided."
Read the whole police report here.
