'Sextortion': Online blackmail of men

Sextortion

Isn't it ironic that when the average citizen does it, it's a crime, but when the police do it for so called "sex stings", it's then magically ok?

Video Description:
Hundreds of thousands of men around the world are falling victim every year to a pernicious form of online crime. It has been nicknamed "sextortion" and is a form of blackmail. Victims are normally lured in through social media sites; the blackmailers are criminal gangs operating in countries like the Philippines.

AZ - Owner of websites loses case in federal district court

Original Article

Click the "Offendex" label above for all related articles.

Excerpt:
This newsflash from California RSOL Charles Rodrick, owner of a family of websites that publishes the names, photos and other personal information regarding registered citizens and sometimes members of their families, today lost a case filed against him.

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AZ - Jury awards $3.4M to victims of sex-offender websites

Original Article (Video available)

05/16/2014

By Robert Anglen

Victims targeted for harassment on sex-offender websites pleaded with a Maricopa County jury to financially punish the owner and take away his ability to continue operating.

On Wednesday, the jury listened.

In a unanimous verdict, jurors hit Valley businessman Charles "Chuck" Rodrick with a $3.4 million judgment on behalf of three people profiled on websites such as Offendex.com, SORArchives and SexOffenderrecord.com.

Rodrick is accused of running an Internet extortion racket that used public records maintained by law enforcement to demand money from sex offenders, harassing those who complained.

The jury awarded victims almost $500,000 in actual damages and $2.9 million in punitive damages, agreeing Rodrick defamed them, invaded their privacy, put them in a false light and abused the court system by filing lawsuits against them as a form of retaliation.

The decision came after the court last week declared Rodrick the defendant in defamation lawsuits he filed more than a year ago against those who publicly decried the websites, including his ex-wife, her boyfriend, a convicted sex offender from Washington and the offender's mother.

Superior Court Judge Douglas Gerlach also allowed several of the victims' counterclaims against Rodrick to go forward, reversing the roles of the defendants and making them plaintiffs. The move effectively put Rodrick in the position of defending himself in his own case.

Rodrick, 52, of Cave Creek, appeared unperturbed by the separate verdicts. The court clerk had barely finished reading the judgments when Rodrick leaned sideways in his chair and called out to the opposing parties with a promise to appeal.

"Well, gentlemen, you know the drill," he said in a loud, mirthful voice.

Rodrick, who for more than a year has refused to discuss his websites, declined comment after court Wednesday.

His victims said they were elated by the decision.

"I am super glad justice has been served," Phoenix resident David Ellis said following the trial. "I did ask (the jury) to make their verdict significant enough to keep him from ever climbing out of his hole, and they did."

Ellis said he was targeted after he began dating Rodrick's ex-wife while the couple were going through an acrimonious divorce. Court records show Rodrick posted information on several websites suggesting Ellis, a decorated combat veteran with no criminal record, was a child molester.

Ellis, who is co-owner of an airplane-parts manufacturing company in Phoenix called American Aerospace Technical Castings, said Rodrick posted false information accusing his company of making shoddy equipment. Ellis said Rodrick also accused him of workplace sexual harassment.

"It's kind of a shame. I fought for people's civil rights," Ellis said. "Then this guy, he used the First Amendment to attack me."

Rodrick's ex-wife, Lois Flynn of Chandler, said she felt vindicated. Rodrick's websites accused her of having an adulterous relationship, being an alcoholic and working with child molesters who sought to discredit the websites.

Flynn said the Internet postings damaged her reputation and affected her relationships at church, where she once worked with kids.

"In church Sunday, if anyone looks at me sideways, I can hold up the judgment and say I have been judged the right way," she said.

The jury awarded Ellis almost $2.2 million. It awarded Flynn $780,000. It also gave $467,000 to Susan Galvez, the mother of a convicted sex offender in Washington sued by Rodrick after her son launched an Internet campaign challenging Rodrick's websites.

In court, Galvez called Rodrick a "bad man." Her son, pleaded guilty to child molestation in 1996. The jury did not award him any damages, dismissing his claims against Rodrick.

_____ said he considered his mother's win a victory for the family. He said he felt vindicated the moment the judge declared him a plaintiff and he no longer faced the threat of Rodrick's lawsuit.

"I had nothing to lose," he said. "The jury did what was right. If they had gotten the time to get to know who I am, they probably would have ruled differently."

Galvez said he was putting his life back together in 2012 when he discovered his profile on Offendex.com. When Galvez refused to pay to have his name removed and began complaining publicly, he said, operators retaliated against him.

Galvez said he launched his own site, Offendextortion.com, as a way to fight back. He said Rodrick sued his mother as a way to get at him.

Galvez said two jurors told him after the trial that his conviction and background made it hard for them to award him damages. But he said they both wished him well.

None of the eight jurors on Wednesday commented on the case.

A Call 12 for Action investigation in 2013 found Rodrick's sites mined data compiled by law-enforcement agencies across the country and used it to collect money from sex offenders. Operators did not always take down profiles after payments were made, and they launched online harassment campaigns against those who balked at financial demands or filed complaints.

The investigation found the websites listed individuals as sex offenders who no longer were required to register or whose names had been removed from sex-offender databases. The sites included names and personal information of people who had never been arrested or convicted of a sex crime.

The Internet-savvy operators ensured anyone in their databases could be found easily on a Google search. They prominently profiled specific individuals, published their home and e-mail addresses, posted photographs of their relatives and copied their Facebook friends onto the offender websites.

In court filings, Rodrick repeatedly denied owning the websites.

In March, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge found Rodrick controlled the websites, owned the domain names and was the only person capable of posting and removing information on the sites.

The judge sanctioned Rodrick for violating court orders and for failing to take down posts about Ellis, Flynn and the Galvezes.

The judge also sanctioned Rodrick's girlfriend Traci Heisig, a court reporter and owner of Desert Hills Reporting in Phoenix. The judge said Heisig, who joined Rodrick in defamation lawsuits, willfully refused to comply with court orders.

After she and Rodrick were declared defendants, Heisig was dismissed from the case.

Rodrick's former partner, Brent Oesterblad, testified that he helped disguise Rodrick's ownership interest by opening bank accounts and filing corporation papers for him. He said Rodrick further hid his role by registering website domain names in foreign countries and running them through proxy servers. His claims were backed by court and financial records.

Rodrick and Oesterblad, both of whom were convicted on fraud-related charges in the early 1990s, were at the center of state and federal lawsuits. Sex offenders and others named on the websites have accused them of running an extortion racket. Rodrick and Oesterblad are also accused of posting inaccurate or old information and using the threat of exposure as leverage in their operation.

Lawyers for Ellis, Flynn and the Galvezes credited Oesterblad with coming forward and providing crucial financial and operational data about the websites. They described his testimony as articulate and truthful. Claims filed against him in the Maricopa County case were dropped.

Rodrick, who represented himself in court, painted himself as a victim.

"It's not easy to be a defendant when you were the plaintiff," he said in a rambling closing argument Wednesday in which he denied ownership of the websites, argued about the amount of money they generated and complained about various court rulings.

See Also:

• Sex offender data is used to collect money and intimidate
• Scrutiny suspends websites' dealings
• Court hammers operator of Internet intimidation sites

MO - Area Counties to Charge for Sex Offender Registration (i.e. Extortion)

Original Article (Video available)

05/06/2014

By Alan Van Zandt

ST. JOSEPH - Sheriff's departments from nine counties across northwest Missouri will be taking advantage of a law allowing them to charge sex offenders for maintaining the Sex Offender Registry program.

Representatives from four of those counties met at the Buchanan County Sheriff's office Monday to talk about the charges.

Starting June 1, counties will begin charging $10 for a first time registry and $5 for each change to a sex offender's current registration.

In Buchanan, Andrew, Nodaway and Holt counties alone, that represents more than 400 offenders.

"I think what it does is it holds their feet to the fire and makes them understand that there are people watching and that it is their responsibility," said Nodaway County Sheriff Darrin White.

"I think all of us are share in the philosophy that they need to pay for the problem they're creating," added Buchanan County Sheriff Mike Strong.
- So when are you going to start charging all other ex-felons for the problems they are causing?

Strong said the small fee will not come close to paying for the cost of maintaining the sex offender program. He says his office spends more than $80,000 per year to register and monitor sex offenders.

CA - California bill targets websites engaged in 'mug shot racket'

Original Article

04/28/2014

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - California lawmakers took steps on Monday to bar so-called extortion websites from posting mug shots of people who have been arrested and then demanding payment to remove the photographs, even from people who are never charged with a crime.

A bill to make it unlawful to solicit or accept payment to remove, correct or modify mug shots online was unanimously passed by the California state senate on Monday, in the latest effort by more than a dozen U.S. states to stop such practices.

The California measure was inspired by the case of Bob DeBrino, who was arrested but never charged for driving under the influence while on prescription medication for an impending surgery, according to the bill's author, state senator Jerry Hill.

DeBrino's booking photo was posted online, and the film producer said he lost business as a result, Hill said in a news release. The websites that posted the picture are demanding thousands of dollars from DeBrino to remove the image, said Hill, a Democrat who represents the San Francisco suburb of San Mateo.

In what legislative researchers for the senate called an unintended consequence of laws making mug shots and other arrest information available to the public, a growing industry has developed that publishes mug shots on a website and then charges those depicted in the photos to remove their images.

"This practice is part of a growing niche industry, 'the mug-shot racket,'" senate researchers wrote in their analysis of the bill.

The bill, which goes next to the state assembly, would impose fines on violators of $1,000 or force them to pay damages and attorneys fees for victims.

If it passes, California would become the sixth state to make it illegal to charge people to remove mug shots from websites, after Georgia, Illinois, Oregon, Texas and Utah, Hill's office said. Another 14 states are considering such legislation, his office said.

FTC Sues ‘Jerk.com’ Over Alleged Consumer Deception

John Fanning

Original Article

04/07/2014

By Jenna Greene

The operators of the website Jerk.com were sued by the Federal Trade Commission today for harvesting personal information from Facebook to designate more than 73 million people jerks or nonjerks, then falsely claiming that consumers could revise their online profiles by paying $30.

The site seemed to have it in for lawyers—the current top headline on Jerk.com is “Pillsbury Law Firm FIRED for Wrong Advice,” followed by “Attorney a Jerk” and “Sheppard Mullin Richter Hampton a Jerk for Bad Advice.” The site provides no further details of the jerk allegations. (A spokesmen from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman declined comment and a Sheppard Mullin spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.)

According to the FTC’s administrative complaint, Hingham, Mass.-based Jerk.com and manager John Fanning from 2009 to 2013 operated the social-networking site where users could create profiles of other people using the “Post a Jerk” feature.

“Although Jerk, LLC, claims that its website contained only user-generated content, respondents actually created or caused to be created the vast majority of Jerk profiles using information from Facebook,” according to the FTC complaint. “Respondents earned revenue by selling ‘memberships’ for $30, by charging consumers a $25 customer service fee to contact the website and by placing third-party advertisements on Jerk.”

The site featured user profiles with buttons underneath, where people could vote on whether the person was a jerk or nonjerk. The profiles also contained comment fields, where people wrote things like “Omg I hate this kid he’s such a loser.”

According to the FTC, an estimated 24.5 to 33.5 million profiles contained a large photo of the person, and about 2.7 to 6.8 million Jerk profiles contained a photo of a child who appeared to be under age 10.

In a March 2013 petition to quash the FTC’s civil investigative demand, Jerk.com attorney Maria Crimi Speth, a partner at Jaburg Wilk, in Phoenix, wrote that children under 14 are prohibited from using the site, and that if a child’s profile is brought to the company’s attention, it is removed.

In the petition, Speth said that “in 2012, Jerk.com only had 22 people subscribe to its service and its total revenue was approximately $3,000.” In the same petition, she also said that the site has almost 100,000 visitors per day.

“The content in profiles often displays information that is publicly available in a Google Internet search as well as newly created user-generated content,” she wrote. She did not respond to a request for comment.

The FTC disputed that the information in the profiles was public. “Numerous consumers have complained that photographs and other information about them on Jerk were originally posted on Facebook using controls that enabled users to designate material for dissemination only to a limited group, and that the information was not designated for public viewing,” the complaint states.

Read the rest of the story

See Also:

• Jerk.com operator and Napster co-founder took personal info from Facebook for 'Jerk' and 'Not a Jerk' profiles

Sex Offender Intimidation & Extortion

Video Source | Related Stories

AZ - Court hammers operator of Internet intimidation sites

Original Article

04/05/2014

By Robert Anglen

A Valley man accused of running an Internet extortion racket was dealt a blow last month when a judge found he posted information on websites suggesting a decorated combat veteran with no criminal record was a child molester.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper imposed several sanctions against Charles "Chuck" Rodrick, saying evidence showed he controlled websites where operators demanded money from sex offenders and harassed those who complained.

In a seven-page ruling March 26, Cooper found Rodrick controlled the websites, owned the domain names and violated court orders to remove posts involving three people he sued for defamation after they publicly decried the websites, including his ex-wife and her boyfriend and a convicted sex offender from Washington.

"He is the administrator for these websites and, in that capacity, is the only person capable of adding or removing information from these websites," Cooper wrote.

Cooper also sanctioned Rodrick's girlfriend, Traci Heisig, a court reporter and owner of Desert Hills Reporting in Phoenix. In a separate ruling, Cooper said Heisig, who joined Rodrick in defamation lawsuits, willfully refused to comply with court orders by repeatedly failing to show up for depositions.

Rodrick responded last week with a motion seeking to have Cooper removed from the case. He accused her of having a conflict of interest because of her past relationship with lawyers in the case, and he said the judge is biased against people who represent themselves in court.

"Rodrick has initiated an independent query into Judge Cooper's record in matters involving pro per litigants," he wrote. "It is believed the results show an extreme prejudice against him and pro per litigants in general."

For more than a year, Rodrick, 52, of Cave Creek, has denied ownership or control of the websites.

A Call 12 for Action investigation in 2013 found Rodrick's sites mined data compiled by law-enforcement agencies across the country and used it to collect money. Operators of the sites did not always take down profiles after payments were made and launched online harassment campaigns against those who complained.

The investigation found the websites listed individuals as sex offenders who no longer were required to register or whose names had been removed from sex-offender databases. The sites also included names and personal information of people who had never been arrested or convicted of a sex crime.

The websites, including Offendex.com, SORArchives.com and Sexoffenderrecord.com, stopped seeking payments from people in exchange for removing profiles in November after crackdowns on so-called take-down sites by credit-card and Web-based payment-processing companies.

Rodrick, who was convicted on fraud-related charges in the early 1990s, is at the center of several state and two federal lawsuits accusing him of running an online extortion racket. Lawsuits also have been filed against Rodrick's former business associate Brent Oesterblad, who has testified that he set up companies to disguise Rodrick's ownership interest and operated the websites as Rodrick's contract employee.

In May, Cooper ordered everyone involved in the defamation lawsuits to stop posting information on websites about the cases and each other. But Cooper said, in September, Rodrick posted claims suggesting his ex-wife's boyfriend, _____, was a child molester.

_____, a retired U.S. Marine Corps major and president of a real-estate holding company in Phoenix, never has been charged with a crime, records show.

Information Rodrick posted about _____ suggests he "is a child molester; states that he communicates with, aids and abets sex offenders and child molesters; alleges _____ committed sexual harassment and other misconduct in the workplace; and lists _____' employment addresses and professional affiliations," Cooper wrote in her ruling.

_____ called the allegations scurrilous, malicious and untrue.

Cooper said Rodrick violated two court orders, and she imposed several sanctions against him. She said a jury will be instructed that he posted the information about _____ and others and that his violation of court orders "may be relevant to the determination of _____' damages." She also ordered Rodrick to pay some fees for lawyers and a computer specialist hired by _____' legal team.

Cooper sanctioned Rodrick for failing to provide discovery to defendant _____, a convicted sex offender in Washington whose name was removed from official sex-offender registries but remained on the sites controlled by Rodrick. Rodrick sued _____ for defamation after he launched a website accusing Rodrick of extortion.

In her ruling against Heisig, Cooper criticized the court reporter's excuses for failing to show up at scheduled depositions. Heisig told the court she was in danger of losing a client over publicity generated by the case and feared what would happen if she missed an appointment with the client in order to attend her own deposition.

"When the Court denied her request ... she elected not to obey the Court's orders anyway," Cooper wrote.

Cooper ordered Heisig to pay attorney's fees and costs related to the missed deposition and tossed out her claims against defendants in the lawsuits.

TN - Former alderman (Richard L. Smith) on probation for solicitation charges against a minor

Richard L. Smith

Original Article

This just goes to show you that the laws are only for specific people. If you are a politician, well known, or rich, then the laws don't apply to you!

03/28/2014

By Bailey Darrow

PUTNAM COUNTY - Former Monterey alderman Richard L. Smith appeared in criminal court Thursday, entering a plea of guilty to one count of solicitation of a minor and must now serve two years on the sex offender registry.

In October, Smith was arrested on a three-count grand jury indictment charging him with one count of solicitation of a minor and two counts of extortion after he reportedly made contact with a young girl on social media and by sending text messages to a cell phone he purchased for her.

By entering a best interest plea of guilty to only the one count of solicitation, a Class E felony, Smith will have to serve two years on probation and must register on the sex offender registry.

He will be allowed to continue living at his home on Volunteer Way in Monterey, even though it is less than 1,000 feet from a school or park, despite that registration status. He will also be allowed to continue living with his girlfriend and her minor child, court documents state.

Upon successful completion of the sentence, Smith will be removed from the sex offender registry and the offense will be fully expunged, according to court documents.

The indictments issued against Smith alleged that between Dec. 1, 2012, and Jan. 9, 2013, Smith “did unlawfully by means of electronic communication intentionally request, persuade, invite or attempt to induce a person who (he) knows or should know is less than 18 years of age” to engage in conduct that, if completed, would constitute a violation of the state’s statutory rape law.

The extortion indictments alleged that Smith told the girl that “he would expose information concerning their personal relationship to various parties to embarrass her unless she fulfilled promises that he said she made concerning their romantic, sexual, and personal relationship.”

According to the indictments, he also told the girl “that he would expose information concerning their personal relationship to various parties to embarrass her unless she returned certain personal property,” to him.

The items Smith insisted the girl return include a ring, a necklace and a phone, according to the indictment.

Smith served on the Monterey board of mayor and aldermen for eight years. In 2010, he ran for mayor of Monterey, losing to then vice-mayor Jeff Hicks by only two votes. He also qualified in the race for mayor of the city in 2008, but ultimately withdrew his name from the ballot. In January 2012, he resigned from the city’s Planning Commission.

Most recently, Smith gained media attention as he campaigned for what he calls “Boomer’s Law” that would increase the possible punishment for aggravated assault in the state, following the death of his son in 2012.

Scrutiny suspends websites' dealings (Extortion)

Original Article

03/22/2014

By Robert Anglen

A shadowy network of Arizona-based Internet companies that used public records to demand money from sex offenders and harass those who complained has imploded amid lawsuits, court hearings and new standards enacted by banks, social media and technology companies.

The websites, including Offendex.com, SORArchives.com and Sexoffenderrecord.com, in November stopped seeking payments from people in exchange for removing profiles, blaming the change on "many conflicts, threats, unreasonable requests and false accusations about this website."

The move followed decisions by MasterCard, Visa, Discover and PayPal to stop processing transactions from what many describe as extortion websites. Google also changed its formula to prevent sites from using search-engine algorithms to increase viewership and monetize on public records such as police mugshots.

A Call 12 for Action investigation, published in May, found that the Arizona-based sex-offender sites mined data compiled by law-enforcement agencies across the country and used it to collect money. Operators of the sites did not always take down profiles after payments were made and launched online harassment campaigns against those who balked at financial demands or filed complaints.

The investigation found the websites listed individuals as sex offenders who no longer were required to register or whose names had been removed from sex-offender databases. The sites also included names and personal information of people who had never been arrested or convicted of a sex crime.

In an interview with Call 12 for Action last month, website operator Brent Oesterblad accused owner Charles "Chuck" Rodrick of taking elaborate steps to conceal his ownership of the websites and misleading state and federal judges about it. Oesterblad's comments were backed by court testimony and banking records.

"I have personal knowledge that Rodrick has misrepresented the facts of his ownership of the sex-offender websites to his former wife, to the Maricopa County Superior Court and to U.S. District Courts in California and Arizona," Oesterblad said in a affidavit filed last month in federal court.

Rodrick, 52, of Cave Creek, has refused interviews for more than a year and would not speak about the websites after a Feb. 19 court hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Rodrick and Oesterblad, both of whom were convicted on fraud-related charges in the early 1990s, are at the center of several state and two federal lawsuits. Sex offenders and others named on the websites have accused them of running an extortion racket. Rodrick and Oesterblad are also accused of posting inaccurate or old information and using the threat of exposure as leverage in their operation.

Rodrick responded to allegations by filing defamation lawsuits against some of his detractors, including his ex-wife and her boyfriend, both of whom were profiled on the sex-offender websites even though neither has a criminal record. Rodrick has also sued their lawyers.

In court filings, Rodrick repeatedly has denied owning the websites. In a federal declaration last year, he said he lacked "ownership interest in any of the companies that own the websites" and does "not have control over the websites as an owner."

Oesterblad told Call 12 for Action he helped disguise Rodrick's ownership interest by opening bank accounts and filing corporation papers for him. He said Rodrick further hid his role by registering website domain names in foreign countries and running them through proxy servers. His claims are backed by court records and testimony.

Oesterblad, who defended his work managing the sex-offender sites, said they did not start out as a way to demand money from offenders.

"It wasn't supposed to be a 'take-down' service. It started purely as an alert service," he said in the interview, adding that when the sites failed to make money "(Rodrick) made a command decision ... to do something to generate revenue."

Financial records lay out connection to websites, forensic computer specialist says financial records, including checks, credit-card receipts, tax documents and bank-account data, presented in court last month provided a picture of Rodrick's involvement in the websites.

"Whoever is receiving money would have control over the websites," according to Phoenix forensic computer specialist Juan Lorenzana, who testified against Rodrick in Superior Court in February. "Revenue is flowing to him through the websites."

Lorenzana, president of JEL Enterprises Inc., testified it was impossible to track the websites themselves to Rodrick. But money going from the sex-offender websites painted a road map that led directly to Rodrick, Lorenzana testified.

Among the financial transactions detailed in court were tens of thousands of dollars to Rodrick's girlfriend, Traci Heisig.

Heisig, who is a court reporter and owns Desert Hills Reporting in Phoenix, is a joint plaintiff in the defamation suit against Rodrick's ex-wife, her boyfriend and a sex offender in Washington.

Financial records presented in court showed $80,000 from the websites went to help Heisig buy a condominium in Rocky Point, Mexico, and $13,000 to buy her jewelry. The account was also used to make multiple payments of about $5,000 for Heisig's office lease on Camelback Road and for a $5,000 personal check, records showed.

Heisig did not respond to an interview request made through her lawyer.

Lorenzana said in court the sex-offender websites generated revenue through two sources: removal fees and ad revenue generated by the sites. Money to Rodrick could be tracked through ClickBank information provided on the websites, Lorenzana said.

ClickBank is a mechanism that generates revenue for websites based on traffic and product promotion. Lorenzana said money from the websites went to bank accounts used by an affiliated company called Civic Sentry, which does business as Web Express Ventures.

According to corporation documents, Oesterblad is the sole manager of Civic Sentry.

Rodrick, who doesn't have a lawyer, repeatedly suggested in court he wasn't the owner of the sites because his name is not on corporation filings. But Lorenzana maintained Rodrick's singular control of the money proved his control and ownership of the websites.

Maricopa County Superior Court judge sets deadline to remove all posts about defendants

Rodrick has been aided in document preparation for his legal fight by a felon who works at a polygraph school, claims to have a background in paralegal work and lists J.D. after her name in a school catalog, implying she has a law degree.

Court records show Kelley Bradbury served eight years in a Colorado prison for theft beginning in 1997.

In her resume for the Polygraph School of Science in Phoenix, Bradbury lists among her credentials a degree in paralegal studies from Rio Salado College. In the current school catalog, she lists her name as "Kelley Bradbury, M.S., J.D."

The State Bar of Arizona has no listing for Bradbury, meaning she is not licensed to practice law in the state. Rio Salado College officials also say records show Bradbury took paralegal classes but never earned a degree.

Officials say she obtained a "certificate of completion in airline operations."

Bradbury did not return multiple calls seeking comment about her background.

E-mails and computer records show Bradbury has assisted Rodrick with court motions. On a Web page, a person named Kelley Bradbury posted comments about one of the people involved in the federal suit against Rodrick and defended the sex-offender websites.

"I feel much safer knowing that sites like www.offendex.com are out there!" a person identified as Bradbury wrote. "If you didn't want your information made public you should not have committed a sex crime!!"

The post could become problematic for Rodrick. The February court hearings involved a request for sanctions against him for posts on websites about defendants in the defamation cases.

In an e-mail this month, a plaintiff in the federal-racketeering case whom Rodrick sued for defamation wrote an e-mail telling Rodrick to remove the content.

"I would request that your ... document preparer remove the slime she has up about me," _____ of Washington wrote. "She's a part of this case. If she does not remove this I will be informing the court."

While cross-examining witnesses during the hearing, Rodrick repeatedly asserted no evidence existed to show he posted the information to the sites.

But later in the hearing, Rodrick tried to broker a deal, offering to take down the offensive posts.

Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper responded by imposing a deadline for Rodrick to remove all posts about the defendants or face arrest.

On. Feb. 24, Cooper issued a civil arrest warrant for Rodrick, which she later rescinded.

No law-enforcement action taken against operators of sex-offender websites.

Call 12 for Action last year found that not all of the people listed on the sex-offender websites are registered sex offenders. Some have no criminal records. Yet their names, addresses and other personal information were put on the sex-offender websites for anyone with an Internet connection to view.

Those who challenged Rodrick and Oesterblad said the interactions frequently turned ugly, with intimidating calls, vitriolic e-mails and threats of lawsuits. Pictures of offenders' family members were posted on the websites along with their addresses. In another case, an offender's Facebook friends were added to the sites.

"Since you like Facebook so much ... we have added your 65 friends to your page on Offendex," an e-mail from website operators stated.

In other cases, the websites profiled offenders whose names had been removed from state sex-offender registries.

State police and departments of correction generally are responsible for maintaining official sex-offender registries, which can include an offender's name, photograph, physical characteristics, addresses and description of the crime.

Sex offenders are sometimes removed from state registries because their crimes have been reclassified and no longer are considered serious enough to require registration. Some offenders are required to register only with law enforcement, and their names would not appear on public registries.

Others have done their time and have sought court orders to remove their names from state and national registries.

The websites advertised records for 750,000 sex offenders. The sites promised to protect families from the menace of sex offenders in their neighborhoods by providing access to present and past criminal records.

Complaints about the websites have been made with attorneys general in at least five states, including Arizona. Complaints also have been submitted to the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which works with the FBI to refer Internet criminal cases to various agencies.

As of this month, no law-enforcement agency has taken action against Rodrick and Oesterblad over the websites, records show.

Rodrick, 52, and Oesterblad, 53, both have felony convictions on fraud-related charges.

Rodrick pleaded guilty in 1993 to selling illegal cable-television descramblers with fraudulent intent. In 1996, he was sued in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for his role in an Alaskan Ponzi scheme that cost investors as much as $50 million. A final judgment of $58,900 was entered against him. Court records do not show any payments were made.

Oesterblad pleaded guilty in 1992 for his part in a frequent-flier scam operated out of his family's Phoenix travel agency and spent 10 months in a federal prison.

Websites' employee said a dispute over money spurred him to testify in civil cases.

The sex-offender websites were built using data copied directly from official law-enforcement websites, Call 12 found.

Eric Souhrada, a former Tempe software developer and computer engineer now living in California, said in an interview last year that he designed the sex-offender websites for Rodrick as subscription services, not as vehicles to target offenders for cash.

Souhrada said he designed the sex-offender sites from data he scraped from official registries maintained by law-enforcement agencies across the country. He said he reformatted the data into his own templates that Rodrick used for websites such as Offendex.

Oesterblad said the origin of the sex-offender sites goes back to 1999 when he and Rodrick owned an Internet-based subscription service to access public records called Spyheadquarters.com. The name was later changed to Onlinedetective.com.

In 2006, the demand for subscriptions to search public records plummeted. Oesterblad said he and Rodrick didn't have another company together until 2011, when Rodrick approached him about a new website called Offendex.com to collect money from sex offenders.

Oesterblad said Rodrick was in the middle of a divorce case and asked him to register the new company with the Arizona Corporation Commission and open bank accounts.

"I did not know then, but believe now, that Rodrick established the name Web Express Ventures in order to hide income and other assets from his estranged wife," Oesterblad wrote in his federal court declaration.

At its peak, the sex-offender websites were bringing in an estimated $35,000 per month, Oesterblad said during last month's interview.

Oesterblad described his role in the website as a contract employee. He said Rodrick paid him 50 percent commission on money he collected from sex offenders through the removal process. He also said his job was to communicate with offenders.

"I'm the one who had to talk to the angry perps on the phone," Oesterblad said, adding that he has no regrets about firing off angry e-mails to offenders and rubbing their faces in the graphic details of their crimes. "I was the zealot."

By the end of 2012, Offendex was getting a lot of negative attention on the Internet and elsewhere. Days after Call 12 for Action sought interviews with Rodrick in December, he changed the name of the site to SORArchives.

Oesterblad said the real blow for the company came after complaints from around the country about similar websites led credit-card and payment-processing companies to reject payments on behalf of the websites. Google also changed its formulas so the sites were buried on the Web.

"Rodrick subsequently learned that he and the SORArchives.com website was under investigation for possible criminal activities," Oesterblad said in his declaration.

Oesterblad said that Rodrick told him he learned Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery's office had opened a criminal investigation into the websites.

No criminal charges have been filed.

Oesterblad said he decided to testify in the civil cases after he and Rodrick had a dispute over $808. Oesterblad said Rodrick refused to pay him for work he did on the websites and then pushed him out of a future project.

He said he felt betrayed and as if he had wasted two years of his life.

"I agreed to talk to everybody. I agreed to tell the truth," Oesterblad said in the interview. "I can acknowledge my naivete and stupidity for being a patsy."

In fall 2012, Call 12 for Action received a complaint call from a consumer alleging that a Valley-based company was engaged in online extortion. Reporter Robert Anglen set out to investigate those claims and found that sex-offender websites were demanding money to remove profiles from the Web. To trace the operators of those websites, Anglen combed through hundreds of pages of court records, business filings and property records.

TN - Sex Offender Notification Bill Advances In Tennessee Legislature

Original Article

03/18/2014

By Nick Banaszak

FAYETTEVILLE (WHNT) - A push for tougher sex offender notification laws in Tennessee came one step closer to reality Tuesday, part of an ongoing effort that originated in Lincoln County several months ago.

A committee in the Tennessee Legislature approved HB 1860 (Video), a bill that would allow municipal and county governments to mail written notices and post flyers in communities that convicted sex offenders move to.

Tennessee lists all of its registered sex offenders on a state website, the only legal method of notification the Volunteer State currently has. But Lincoln County Sheriff Murray Blackwelder said residents who don’t know about the site, or those who don’t have internet access, are vulnerable to potential danger. Blackwelder said issues with the current system came to a head at a community meeting in a rural part of the county last year.

“They [residents] were concerned because they weren’t notified that sex offenders were living in their communities,” said Blackwelder. “When we discussed the TBI website, it became evident that a lot of these people did not have access to the TBI website nor access to the internet.”

Sheriff Blackwelder decided to contact state legislators about the dilemma, a brainstorming session that gave birth to the Tennessee Community Notification Act. Blackwelder said it guarantees awareness for parents, and is cost-effective.

“This gives parents the knowledge of who is in their community,” said Blackwelder. “It doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime…In this bill there is an additional 50 dollar fee assessed to the sex offender. That 50 dollars will be earmarked for community notification.”

Alabama and several other neighboring states already have similar laws in place. Lincoln County officials said it’s one reason why several sex offenders have recently moved north of the state line.

Both bodies of the Tennessee Legislature are expected to formally vote on HB 1860 in the next few weeks.

Skip Meals or Go to Jail? How the For-Profit Probation Industry Preys on the Poor

Original Article

It's extortion, plain and simple!

02/06/2014

By Steven Hsieh

A new Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday documents how the growing use of for-profit probation companies traps poor Americans in the criminal justice system—sometimes jailing them—for misdemeanor crimes or even minor traffic violations.

The report, titled “Profiting From Probation: America’s ‘Offender-Funded’ Probation Industry,” describes a for-profit model that incentivizes probation companies to prey on poor misdemeanor offenders, ensnaring them in debt and threatening imprisonment if financial obligations are not met. As Chris Albom-Lackey, the researcher at Human Rights Watch who authored the report, writes, “In fact, the business of many private probation companies is built largely on the willingness of courts to discriminate against poor offenders who can only afford to pay their fines in installments over time.”

In one of several cases documented in the report, Georgia resident Thomas Barrett wound up in jail after failing to pay more than a thousand dollars in accumulated probation fees. His original crime: stealing a $2 can of beer. Barrett skipped meals and sold his blood plasma to pay down his debt, but didn’t make enough to keep up with growing costs.

This video, produced by Human Rights Watch in conjunction with its report, tells the story of Thomas Barrett and other probationers trapped by the system:

“Probation is supposed to be a way to keep people out of jail, a way for courts to subject people to monitoring and oversight instead of locking them up,” Albom-Lackey told NBC. “What we see in the context of private probation is the whole thing being turned on its head.”

The report says tightening budgets have prompted courts and counties to turn to private firms for probation services. Probation companies handle hundreds of thousands of offenders every year at no cost to the governments that hire them. The probationers themselves end up footing the bill, which includes “supervision fees” that become revenue for the companies in charge. This whole system disproportionately impacts poor Americans, who often cannot afford probation fees and face punishment as a result, the report says.

Here are some of the HRW’s key findings:

• Under the “offender-funded” model, private firms levy fees on poor probationers that are are financially crushing and often times impossible to pay off. On top of exorbitant supervision fees, many offenders must pay for their own electronic monitoring (up to $360 per month) and drug tests (up to $1,250 per year).
• Some courts sentence offenders to probation simply because they cannot afford fines and court costs, a practice called “pay only probation” that Human Rights Watch deems “a legal fiction.” In effect, poorer offenders stay on probation longer and end up paying significantly more, due to supervision fees levied by private firms.
• Private probation officers routinely use “abusive” tactics to collect debts from offenders. These range from coercive demands (“I hope you have all my money today”) to threats of imprisonment.
• Though the US Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to incarcerate probationers who genuinely cannot afford fines, there is little effort made to understand offenders’ financial situations. The report says many probation revocation hearings last just minutes, and few offenders are offered legal representation.
• There is practically no transparency in the industry. Private probation companies aren’t required to disclose revenues they make from probationers and do not offer that information voluntarily.
• While it’s impossible to get exact figures, HRW used a law unique to Georgia to estimate that private probation companies make roughly $40 million in minimum annual revenues in the state alone.