Craigslist or Crimeslist?

BACK STORY • Popular online classifieds home to thieves, con artists, prostitution

By Jim Redden

The Portland Tribune, Nov 27, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (38 Reader comments)

JIM CLARK / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Chandler Cook and Elizabeth Dorsch made a deposit for a lease-to-own house they found through the community billboard Web site Craigslist.org, but the “seller” vanished on them.

In Tigard, a man allegedly invites women to his house and sexually assaults them.

In Portland, newlyweds discover that their minister allegedly stole their wedding gifts.

In Beaverton, police find a prostitution ring operating in a local motel.

And in Gresham, a couple steals and resells utility trailers for years.

All of these accused or convicted criminals have one thing in common – they committed their crimes with the help of Craigslist (www.craigslist.org), the wildly popular Web site for buying and selling property and services, as well as finding a job, a roommate or a date.

Portland police recently busted a theft ring using Craigslist to sell thousands of dollars worth of stolen property.

Following up on a tip that a stolen laptop computer was sold on Craigslist, police served a search warrant on a house in the 9600 block of Southeast Holgate Boulevard and recovered an estimated $30,000 worth of stolen electronic goods, power tools, an LCD TV screen, iPods, car stereos and other consumer products.

“The occupants of the house told us they were using Craigslist to sell the stolen property every day,” said Portland police officer Jim DeFrain, who participated in the Nov. 15 raid. “It happens all the time.”

Craigslist Chief Executive Officer and programmer Jim Buckmaster says the vast majority of the transactions over the Web sites are legal, and that his organization works with law enforcement agencies to curtail any criminal activities.

“Misuse of Craigslist for the facilitation of illegal activity is absolutely unacceptable,” Buckmaster said in an e-mail response to questions from the Portland Tribune.

Local law enforcement officers say that crimes on Craigslist are a major problem, however.

“Craigslist, unfortunately, is about much more than just buying and selling things. There have also been issues with prostitution, child exploitation, stolen property, ID theft, any number of things,” said Multnomah County sheriff’s office spokesman Travis Gullberg, whose agency has arrested many people in recent years for Craigslist-related crimes.

Substantially reducing Craigslist-related crimes may not be possible, however. Federal courts so far have ruled that Web site operators are not liable for what people post on them. And local law enforcement officials say they do not have the resources to constantly monitor Craigslist.

Portland’s a big user

Founded in San Francisco in 1995, Craigslist claims to operate more than 300 sites in 50 states and more than 50 countries.

According to organization statistics, Craigslist is the seventh-most popular English language Web site in the world, hosting more than 12 million ads viewed by more than 15 million people a month.

Craigslist also says that 700,000 new classified ads are posted on the Portland Web site every month, generating 275 million page views – making Portland the organization’s No. 5 city in terms of overall use and No. 2 city in terms of per capita use, trailing only San Francisco.

Buckmaster insists that Craigslist reflects society at large.

“It was recently pointed out to us that with literally billions of positive human interactions facilitated by Craigslist, it is quite remarkable how little crime is associated with the site, given the much higher crime rates that exist in the world at large – which is a testament to the good intentions of the vast majority of Craigslist users,” he wrote in an e-mail.

That’s small consolation to Elizabeth Dorsch and her boyfriend, Chandler Cook, who were scammed out of $2,400 by a woman they met through Craigslist in September.

Lynne Sisto, 33, offered to sell them a house on a lease-to-own basis. Sisto told the couple she needed the money to finishing buying the house. When the couple showed up to move in, they discovered the house still was for sale, and Sisto had vanished.

Portland police arrested Sisto in October for scamming several people out of at least $20,000 through similar schemes.

“It was a horrible feeling. You think you’ve got a place to live, and then you’re nearly homeless,” said Dorsch, who was forced to move into a low-rent apartment with her boyfriend in Vancouver, Wash.

Reports spawn a Web site

Craigslist-related crimes are becoming so well known that several Web sites and blogs have been established to track them.

One – www.craigscrimelist.org – is operated by a true-crime buff who uses the name Trench Reynolds to avoid retaliation, he says.

After starting his first blog on school shootings in 2000, Reynolds said he began noticing news stories about crimes related to the Internet, including many connected to Craigslist and such social Web sites as MySpace.

After starting a Web site dedicated to such crimes, he soon realized that the majority were connected to just one site – Craigslist – and started the Web site dedicated to it.

“I’m probably posting 30 to 40 stories a month just on crimes connected to Craigslist,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds believes that a major reason why criminals are attracted to Craigslist is its anonymous nature. People posting ads do not have to report any identifying information to anyone.

“There’s no screening or regulation at all about who can use it. If you place a classified ad for something, you’ve got to give somebody your name and address. But on Craigslist, nobody knows who you are or where you live,” Reynolds said. “The inmates are running the asylum.”

Locally, criminals allegedly are responding to Craigslist ads, too.

On Nov. 15, Tigard police arrested Ronald Leistiko, 52, on charges that he responded to ads on Craigslist and other Internet sites to invite women to his house and sexually assault them.

According to Tigard police spokesman Jim Wolf, Leistiko found his victims by responding to personal ads posted on Craigslist and other sites.

“We’ve investigated some sex-related crimes associated with Craigslist before, but nothing of this magnitude,” Wolf said.

Some ads suggest sex for cash

According to Reynolds, more than half of the news stories he sees on Craigslist-related crimes involve prostitution.

All Craigslist Web sites have an “erotic services” section where people openly advertise for sexual partners. Many clearly suggest sex is available for money.

The erotic services category easily draws the highest number of Craigslist visitors, according to an April 2007 study released by the Web site analysis firm Compete.com.

The study, which looked at eight major American cities (though not Portland or San Francisco), found “erotic services consistently garner the highest number of individual visitors for February – almost always twice as many as the next ranking category, averaging 260,000 people per city.”

A nonprofit advocacy group against human sexual trafficking, called the Polaris Project, believes Craigslist is the nation’s single largest source for prostitution, including child exploitation.

The project surveyed all Craigslist pages for apparent prostitutes on Feb. 7. It identified thousands across the country, including 275 on the Portland site.

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