TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: Classifieds Crime

  • One of Idaho trio pleads guilty

    Craigslist prostitution suspect pleads guilty:

    I’ve posted about Douglas Winberry, Lindsey McKeehan and Colby Watson of Boise, Idaho before. They’re the trio who are accused of having sex with a 16-year-old girl, giving her meth, and pimping her out on craigslist.

    Back in August the trio all pleaded not guilty. However, Lindsey McKeehan has recently changed her plea to guilty.

    The Ada County Prosecutor’s office says Lindsey McKeehan has now plead guilty to two counts of felony injury to a child: one count of giving a teen meth, and then the second charge is for having sexual contact with a teen and letting a man watch.

    As part of her plea, McKeehan will testify against her ex-boyfriend Watson. Even with her plea, she’s still looking at 10 years behind bars.

  • Northern Cali is craigslist crime hotspot

    N. Calif. Called Craigslist Crime ‘Hotspot’:

    This was an interview I did with TV station KCRA in Sacramento, California about violent crimes and craigslist. Yes, I know they call me Trent Reynolds. That’s more TV friendly than Trench. It’s not like either of those are my real name anyway so there you have it.

    I thought I would be going head to head with Jim Buckmaster himself but that turned out not to be. I would have loved to have had that opportunity.

    First, let me brag about my one and only quote in the article…

    Crimes such as stolen items for sale, offers of prostitution and money fraud are much more common. A clearing house for these crimes is found on the Web site thetrenchcoat.com — a site where victims can share their Craigslist horror stories.

    “I see more crimes reported on the West Coast and in the Pacific Northwest. The big hotspots would be in Northern California,” site developer Trent Reynolds said.

    The area is a Craigslist fan base: The site was born just down the road in San Francisco, and Northern California’s in turn use it more and are more likely to become victims.

    It’s true. Violent crimes like armed robbery are rarer on craigslist than prostitution and fraud but that doesn’t make it any less of an issue. And Northern California is the epicenter of craigslist related crime since that’s where the site got its start and people have been using it longer there than anywhere else.

    Now let’s hear from craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster…

    According to Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, the percentage of postings that end in significant crimes is low when compared with the legitimate use of the site.

    Buckmaster claimed Craigslist is unable to track the number of crimes involving the site. He said the task would be daunting, pointing to the 50 million monthly users, 35 million listings and 12 billion monthly pageviews.

    “The incidence is not zero. We’d like it be zero, but it’s not zero,” Buckmaster said.

    It’s definitely not zero but like I said it’s a large enough number to cause concern yet Mr. Buckmaaster just washes his hands of it and refuses to do anything to protect his userbase.

    User profiles, while not a perfect solution, would go a long way to discouraging a lot of crime on craigslist. So would eliminating the erotic services section. Two things that craigslist is not considering. So anonymous crime will continue unabated on craigslist. Eventually, people will get so fed up with it they’ll move on to other sites and then the big wigs at craigslist will wonder what happened.

    Again, how have they not hired me as a consultant? I’m not above selling out to the man. craigslist and its users see themselves as going against the grain but in reality, they’re just another corporation hence they are ‘the man’.

  • Queens pimp sentenced

    Queens Man Sentenced For Craigslist Pimping:

    33-year-old Tyrone Waite of Jamaica, Queens was sentenced to up to seven years behind bars for being a craigslist pimp and lying to a grand jury. Not only was he a craigslist pimp but he was trying to pimp out a 13-year-old girl on craigslist. At the time of his arrest, he also had naked pics of the 13-year-old on his laptop.

    As a special bonus the D.A. pontificates on prostitution being referred to as a victimless crime.

    “Prostitution is not a victimless crime but a terrifying and despicable offense against society practiced by callous people who enslave young women without hope and victimize them one day at a time”, district attorney Richard A. Brown said. “This guilty plea and sentencing allowed the young victim to avoid testifying at trial and hopefully will help her to recover from her ordeal.”

    Word.

  • Leistiko found guilty of rape

    Tigard man convicted of Craigslist rapes:

    Ronald Marcus Leistiko of Tigard, Oregon was convicted yesterday for raping two craigslist escorts one of which was only 15-years-old. He also supplied alcohol and cocaine to the 15-year-old.

    He claimed at trial that he didn’t remember the 25-year-old escort who he tackled and raped after she only agreed to a striptease.

    He was acquitted of raping an 18-year-old who placed a personal ad that said she was lonely and wanted to meet men.

    Leistiko almost seemingly bragged about all the sex he had through craigslist. I wonder how many of those alleged conquests were victims who didn’t come forward.

    He’s looking at 26 years.

  • Wash. man charged with rape of prostitutes

    Bellevue man charged with rape:

    Authorities believe that 27-year-old Sasidhar Vanapalli of Bellevue Washington by way of India is responsible for the rapes of two craigslist escorts.

    Police believe that Vanapalli posed as a police officer to force the women into having sex with him.

    Since Vanapalli is an Indian national, prosecutors have requested that his passport be seized.

  • Oregon craigslist rapist on trial

    Craigslist ads at center stage in Tigard rape trial:

    The first craigslist rapist I ever posted about on this site was Ronald Marcus Leistiko. He would respond to ads including escort ads and rape the women who came to his house in Tigard, Oregon. One of his victims was a 14-year-old girl.

    His trial for multiple counts of rape among other charges started this week.

    Not surprisingly Leistiko’s slimy lawyer is trying to blame the victims. You know, the ones that were raped.

    “Craigslist has taken the world’s oldest profession into the Internet age,” defense attorney Timothy Bowman told jurors Wednesday in his opening statement. “You will hear some startling evidence about the nature of advertising on Craigslist.”

    Bowman said as many as 2,000 ads a day are posted by women looking for men, just on the Portland section of Craigslist.

    “The competition is fierce and the enticements are alluring,” he said. “And the promises are, well, for full satisfaction and that sort of thing.”

    The defense is that the sex was consensual, in the context of prostitutes being paid for their services.

    While I’m constantly posting some of the exact same things that the slimy lawyer said I would never use them as excuses for rape. I don’t think the prostitutes were paid to be beaten, strangled, and raped.

    Leistiko is nothing but a serial predator who purposely preyed upon these women because I’m sure in his mind he figured no one would care about them or take them seriously. I hope the jury in Oregon proves me wrong.

  • Tips from the tutor scam

    Tutor targeted by scammers after posting ad on Craigslist:

    Just another article about the tutor scam. This time it’s out of St. Peters, Missouri but I wanted to highlight two things mentioned in the article.

    First, let’s hear from a U.S. Postal Inspector…

    “There’s just no legitimate reason why someone should send you a check or money order for more than the amount request,”

    The second one is from the tutor himself…

    “The majority of the contacts I got of Craigslist were similar to this, as opposed to the ones I would call legitimate,”

    Consider both of those things before doing business on craigslist.

  • 13 johns busted in FL craigslist sting

    Teacher Among 13 Arrested In Polk Prostitution Sting:

    The Polk County, Florida Sheriff’s Department arrested 13 johns in a craigslist prostitution sting. One of those arrested was a local school teacher. He got singled out in the article because of his job yet they made no mention of the occupations of the other 12 arrested.

    The guys that should go out now and buy lottery tickets because they’re that damn lucky are these two…

    Two men came to the house but changed their minds and left without going inside. They were not arrested, Judd said.

    You don’t get much luckier than that.

  • More on the Pennsylvania pedophile that perused a personal ad

    Mt. Washington Man Charged After Responding To Teen’s Ad On Craigslist:

    This is a follow-up to the post I did about 38-year-old Mark Nernberg who responded to the personal ad of a 14-year-old boy.

    According to police in Mt. Washington, PA the boy did, in fact, take out the personal ad on craigslist and it stated that he was looking for sex between consenting adults. However, police say that Nernberg knew the kid was underage.

    Good job to the parents who allowed their kid to post this ad.

  • A real massage therapist weighs in

    I got the following e-mail from a legitimate massage therapist. You know the ones. The ones with licenses that don’t give happy endings that usually work in an actual spa and not just some place that calls itself a spa when it’s in a rundown hole in the wall in the seedy part of town. Anyway, this massage therapist has a beef with craigslist…

    What bugs me about all the articles about craigslist is that they don’t encourage the public to flag illegal ads! As a massage therapist, hookers on craigslist give my profession a bad name. Please start encouraging people to flag these illegal ads, if we all work together we can reduce these ads! Hell, at least it’s better than doing nothing!

    Oh believe me MT, I do recommend that. However, for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. If anyone ever comes out and publicly claims they flag ads the hookers and whoremongers start a harassment campaign.

    But as long as everyone stays quiet about it I think we could theoretically get something accomplished.

    If everyone reading this went to their local craigslist and started flagging just a few illegal ads in the erotic services section maybe we could actually get craigslist’s attention on this.