Just hours after Senators Portman and McCaskill won a historic victory in their contempt action against Backpage.com and its CEO, Carl Ferrer, ABC’s Nightline re-aired a special edition program titled “Daughters for Sale,” which focused on the online sex trafficking trade and, specifically, the practices of Backpage.com.  Portman and McCaskill, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), appeared in the program to discuss their year-long investigation into online sex trafficking.

In re-airing the program, ABC Nightline’s Correspondent Byron Pitts highlighted the news of the court victory:

“There’s an update. Today, in a major victory for the Senate, a D.C. Judge ruled that Carl Ferrer and Backpage have to turn over all the requested documents pertaining to their escort ads within the next 10 days.”

PSI began its bipartisan investigation of human trafficking on the Internet in April 2015. With estimated annual revenues of more than $150 million, Backpage is a market leader in commercial sex advertising and has been linked to hundreds of reported cases of sex trafficking, including the trafficking of children. After Backpage refused to comply with a subpoena, the Senate passed a civil contempt resolution by a vote of 96 to 0 to authorize a lawsuit against Backpage.  On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer ordered Ferrer to comply with the subpoena and hand over documents within 10 days.  On November 19, 2015, the Subcommittee issued an extensive staff report about Backpage’s activities and a held a hearing at which Ferrer refused to appear.

The full ABC Nightline special edition, which aired in two parts, can be found here and here.

Portman has a long record of fighting to combat human trafficking. In addition to leading the investigation of Backpage, Portman, who is the author of five federal anti-trafficking laws designed to better serve victims and help law enforcement end this horrific crime, has exposed the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS)  troubling policies that placed children into the hands of a human trafficking ring and questioned Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on what steps were being taken to protect at-risk migrant children crossing our border. Portman has met with countless victims in order to hear their stories and to learn how he can help end this heinous crime.

###