Man accused of running child prostitution scheme:
28-year-old convicted felon Aaron Pierre Brown of Hayward, California is accused of pimping out two teenage girls on craigslist. The girls had been in an L.A. area group home. Brown allegedly beat the girls and took explicit photos of them for the craigslist ads.
Yet some people who want to be able to pay for sex will argue that these two girls aren’t victims of prostitution.
FBI Says New Craigslist Scam Preys On Landlords:
The FBI is warning about a new real estate scam on craigslist. This time instead of targeting would be renters the scam is targeting landlords.
The scam starts out in the usual way, the landlords who place craigslist ads get poorly written responses from people who claim to be doctors from overseas or some other preposterous story.
Then eventually they try to hit up the landlords for money. In the case mentioned in the article, the scammer asked for money saying he needed help getting his furniture.
This time I don’t think the scammers have thought their cunning plan all the way through. But you know eventually, they’ll hit that one person with a trusting heart and take them for all their worth.
At least 3 people sign up for bogus job posting on Craigslist:
3 people in Michigan have been taken by a job scam. They had provided money and personal information so the ’employer’ could do a background search. I don’t know about you but I’ve never applied for a job where I had to give the employer money for any reason.
The people were told to meet with the employer in Flint but when they showed up no one knew what they were talking about.
Which just goes to show that even the job postings on craigslist, which are paid postings, are suspect.
Trial Delayed For Man Accused Of Forcing Women Into Prostitution:
The trial for craigslist pimp Aaron George was supposed to have started today but has been rescheduled for September 16th.
George is accused of forcing women into prostitution including am 18-year-old and a woman who was six months pregnant.
George had previously escaped Orange County, Florida jail but was apprehended in California.
Suspected prostitutes report attacks in Milpitas:
Three prostitutes from Milpitas, California have been robbed since June and one was sexually assaulted. All said that it happened after arranging meetings through craigslist or MyRedBook. One of the victims is 17-years-old.
Police believe it’s the work of the same group of people each time.
The Craigslist Rapist : Guest Blog by Trench Reynolds:
This is a piece I did for the Investigation Discovery blog The Criminal Report Daily that’s run by David Lohr. It focuses on the craigslist rapist Mark Antonio Humphries.
UPDATE 12/21/2015: My piece was pulled from ID some years ago in what I’m sure was a housekeeping move however thanks to Archive.org I can bring it to you now.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Website Craigslist. In case you’re not, it’s a massive online classifieds site that has regional sites in most of the United States and major cities around the world. It was started in 1995, in San Francisco, California, by Craig Newmark and was originally intended as a personal site for him and his friends to communicate. Over a decade later, it’s a multi-million dollar business.
You can get just about anything you want on Craigslist – furniture, jobs, dates, even concert tickets; however, Mark Antonio Humphries was looking for something a little different on Craigslist – Humphries was looking for victims.
Before we get to Humphries, let me tell you about the other things you can get on Craigslist.
Craigslist has a section called “erotic services”. This is where the ads for “escort services” and “massages” reside. In other words, it’s where Craigslist allows anyone to post ads for prostitution.
Humphries, of Prince Georges County, Maryland, picked his victims from the erotic services section. Humphries was otherwise known as the “Craigslist Rapist”. From October 2007 through July 2008 Humphries raped nine women that he met through Craigslist. The women were either escorts or were looking for one night stands. Humphries would set up the meetings at empty apartments or motel rooms.
Humphries slipped through the grasp of police more than once and at one point he even went to the police himself, to fish for information.
On July 23, police finally caught up with Humphries at an apartment in Hyattsville, Maryland. After police evacuated the building, Humphries shot himself in the head. He died later that night.
Humphries may go down in infamy as “the” Craigslist rapist since he struck in an area near media-centric Washington, D.C.; however, he is not the only one.
In DeKalb County, Georgia, 18-year-old Allen Jamar McDowell was arrested for the rape of two women he met through Craigslist. McDowell is also HIV positive.
In Tigard, Oregon, 52-year-old Ronald M. Leistiko was arrested for luring several women to his home through Craigslist and raping them.
In California, 24-year-old Waymon Livingston was arrested for raping a masseuse he contacted through Craigslist. The DNA from the rape linked him to a murder for which he is now facing life without parole.
Rape is not the only crime being committed through Craigslist. 19-year-old college student Donna Jou disappeared after leaving on a date with a man she met on Craigslist and 22-year-old nanny Katherine Ann Olson was killed after answering an employment ad. Her killer took out the ad allegedly just so he could kill someone.
Craigslist is also a hive for various scammers, fences, and thieves. Not that these crimes haven’t been occurring since the dawn of the Internet, but I’ve never heard of so much crime being connected to one Website.
Family Of Nine Loses Savings Because Of Craigslist Rental Scam:
Another family has been taken by the craigslist rental scam. A family from Peoria, Arizona was new to the area and found a rental home on craigslist that was too good to be true. As expected it was too good to be true.
They met a couple who called themselves Jim and Jaime Williams who they forked over $1500 to.
Then when the family tried to move in they met the actual owner. Luckily the real owners worked something out with the family to let them stay there.
As far as the “Williamses” go…
Peoria Arizona police are asking for the public’s help in looking for the scam artists responsible. They are described as “a short heavyset woman and a man with crooked teeth and a heart tattooed on one hand. They were last seen driving a white Chevy Blazer.”
The article recommends checking with the county first to see who actually owns a rental property.
THE ‘CRAIGSLIST SERIAL RAPIST’: A TIMELINE:
This is an article from the Washington Post that shows the timeline in the investigation into craigslist rapist Mark Humphries.
What I find interesting is that the police seemed to have Humphries as a suspect going back to May. I’d be interested to know why they couldn’t close in on him before July.
Suspected Craigslist Rapist Shoots Self, Police Say:
Back in February, I posted about the alleged Maryland craigslist serial rapist.
A person police believe to be that rapist shot himself in the head yesterday in Hyattsville, Maryland, Police believe that 33-year-old Mark Antonio Humphries is the person who has used craigslist in the past to rape at least 9 women, most of who were escorts.
Humphries shot himself in the head when police approached the apartment he was hiding in. Unfortunately, he survived the shooting. Scratch that he didn’t survive.
Now that I think about it wouldn’t those escorts who were raped be considered victims?
I got an e-mail yesterday from a reader by the name of Jon. He had developed a website that basically was the craigslist vigilante posse I’ve been wanting to organize. Its goal was to flag the obvious illegal ads in the erotic services section of craigslist.
According to Jon, the site was making good progress in at least one major city that has a problem with craigslist prostitution. A large number of ads for illegal services had been removed. This is exactly the kind of thing that Jim Buckmaster himself says is supposedly happening on craigslist to curb illegal activity. What he doesn’t tell you is that flagging ads just leads to more criminal activity.
Somehow the denizens of the erotic services section were able to obtain Jon’s personal information and were able to use it into harassing Jon to take down his site.
Basically, they were calling and saying I needed to mind my own business and implied that things were just getting started. They also posted a bunch of CL ads with my phone number for free stuff at my house and used my email to sign me up for adult services online. I wasn’t too worried until they started calling my wife and using expletives and breathing heavy. I sent a complaint to CL, have not heard back from them. All the calls came in blocked, so I have no phone numbers or email for these people either. I’m sure CL could find out who posted the bogus ads, but I am not going to hold my breath that they will want to help me.
Of course not. That would cut into their revenue stream. craigslist says it makes no money off of its erotic services section but that’s just not true. The erotic services section brings in cubic assloads of traffic to the site and some of them are employers who use the site to post job ads which is where craigslist makes their money.
So I know that some craigslist employees read this site. How about helping Jon out with these creeps. If you contact me I’ll be more than happy to put you in touch with him and I’ll keep it confidential.
Like Jon, I’m not holding my breath either that they’ll get back to me.