Local man fights back: Sex-offender data used to collect money and intimidate

5-30-2013 Arizona:

A network of Arizona-based Internet companies is mining data from sex-offender sites maintained by law-enforcement agencies and using it to demand money and harass those who complain or refuse to pay.

State and national registries are set up to provide information on where the most serious sex offenders are living and warn that the information cannot be used to threaten, harass or intimidate offenders.

But sex offenders and others profiled by the ­Arizona companies accuse their operators, in a civil lawsuit and elsewhere, of running an extortion ­racket by demanding up to $499 for removing names, criminal histories, photographs, addresses, phone numbers and other personal data from their non-government sites.

“I feel degraded, humiliated, harassed and intimidated,” said Gordon Grainger of Great Falls, a former registered sex offender who said he has tried to get his name removed from the websites. “I won’t lie. It’s gotten to the point where I have had suicidal thoughts.”

They accuse operators of posting inaccurate or old information and using the threat of exposure as a sex offender as leverage.

Operators of SORArchives.com, Offendex.com and Onlinedetective.com did not take down individual profiles after payments were made and launched online harassment campaigns against those who balked at financial demands or filed complaints, an eight-month investigation by the Arizona Republic revealed.

The newspaper found the websites list individuals as sex offenders who no longer are required to register and whose names have been removed from state databases. Among the hundreds of thousands of names that appear, the websites include names and addresses of people who never have been arrested or convicted of a sex crime.

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

"Enjoy the exposure you have created for yourself,” operators said in an email to an offender last year. “Unfortunately you took (your) family with you.”

Internet searches are ubiquitous today for screening and verifying everything from financial applications to resumes. If someone’s name pops up on a sex-offender database, it could affect their ability to get a job, a loan or even a date.

Court filings, computer searches, corporation records and interviews show the two operators of the websites are Chuck Rodrick, 51, and Brent Oesterblad, 52, Arizona residents who for the past decade have operated a series of Web-based businesses in Arizona. They both have felony convictions on fraud-related charges.

Rodrick and Oesterblad refused to discuss the websites and denied ownership.

Those who challenged Rodrick and Oesterblad said the interactions frequently turned ugly, with intimidating calls, vitriolic emails and threats of lawsuits.

Grainger in January recorded two calls with Rodrick and posted them on various websites, including YouTube, to fight back.

“We have a soft spot for innocent people. We take them (profiles) down all of the time when people can prove they are innocent. ... In return, what are you going to do for us?” Rodrick said in one call. “I don’t care if you guys have an opinion on Offendex or call it extortion or whatever.”

Rodrick acknowledged that he was being recorded in the call. He maintained that the websites are legal and insisted that no attorney general in the United States would take action against the websites.

SORArchives, Offendex and Onlinedetective were built using data from official state sex-offender registries, according to a Silicon Valley computer engineer who said Rodrick paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to design and update the websites.

State police and departments of correction generally are responsible for maintaining official registries, which can include an offender’s name, photograph, physical characteristics, addresses and description of the crime. The Arizona Department of Public Safety, which operates the state’s official registry, azsexoffender.org, states on the site that “misuse of this information may result in criminal prosecution.”

People named on the sites say they have submitted complaints with attorneys general in Montana, Arizona, Louisiana, Virginia and Washington and with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal agencies.

No law-enforcement agency has taken any court action against Rodrick and Oesterblad over the websites, records show.

In March, California lawyer Janice Belucci filed a federal civil lawsuit in Los Angeles on behalf of 10 people. The lawsuit accuses Rodrick and Oesterblad of racketeering and extortion.

Lawyers representing the website operators this month responded with a motion to dismiss the case for a lack of jurisdiction.

Belucci said law enforcement has failed to act despite ample evidence.

“Most people don’t care about sex offenders,” she said. “They are the victims in all of this.”

Harassment online

Those who have challenged the websites say they and their families have been subjected to harassment that includes having personal phone numbers, addresses and photographs of family and friends published on the sex-offender websites.

They say operators made threatening phone calls, sent disturbing ­emails and scraped Facebook profiles to copy the information onto the sites.

Grainger, 36, said his family has been under siege for almost a year. He said Rodrick and Oesterblad threatened him in a series of emails and sent him a photograph of his own infant son to punctuate their demands.

“Since you like Facebook so much ... we have added your 65 friends to your page on Offendex,” a Nov. 9 email reads. “We will release your record to five more search engines plus a few other ‘special spots’ that you do not want to be.”

A review of the emails shows they were sent from a variety of addresses, including Rodrick’s Gmail account. Some of the emails contain salutations from the Offendex “support team,” “support staff” or “legal research team.” Others are signed by “Brent” or “Brent Marshal,” which is Oesterblad’s middle name.

In the calls Grainger recorded in January, Rodrick said he decides who gets profiled on the websites.

“I have control over whether or not a record (goes) up or down,” Rodrick said. “I do have that control, and I do have the ability to make that happen.”

Grainger was convicted in 1995 at age 19 for having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. His arrest in Michigan came after he stole her father’s gun and car and attempted to run away with her. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Grainger said he carefully rebuilt his life since being released from prison, moving to Montana, enrolling in paralegal classes and starting a family. In 2011, based on changes in Michigan law, Grainger was no longer required to register as a sex offender and his name was removed from official databases.

He said he was shocked to discover his Offendex profile last year and fought with operators to have it removed.

Operators accused Grainger of harassment for posting comments about Offendex on YouTube and other websites.

Grainger acknowledged firing off angry, obscenity-laced emails to Rodrick and Oesterblad and referring to them in derogatory terms in online posts.

“They have threatened me and my family. Of course I am mad,” he said. “I hate these guys for what they are doing.”

Grainger and his wife are named in a defamation suit by Rodrick.

Grainger denies defaming Rodrick and has filed a counterclaim accusing him of harassment.

Rodrick has filed a motion disputing the claim.

Contacting operators directly isn't easy

SORArchives and Offendex share the same slogan: “Find sex offenders in your area ... Before they find you!”

But operators of the websites can’t be easily identified or located. SOR­Archives and Offendex do not list on their sites any phone numbers, addresses or contact information beyond online email forms.

Offendex stated last year that it operated within the laws of Arizona. A similar notice on the Onlinedetective website states that any disputes will be resolved in court.

Extensive record searches show ­SORArchives and Offendex operated without business licenses or any corporation filings. Any corporation or limited-liability company doing business in the state is required by law to register with the Arizona Corporation Commission. Trade names and partnerships must be registered with the secretary of state. Some cities also require business licenses.

Days after a reporter attempted to contact Rodrick and Oesterbald in December, the Offendex website was taken down. Users were redirected to Onlinedetective.com.

Onlinedetective is a registered corporation. Records show Rodrick and Oesterblad were equal partners when they launched Onlinedetective in 2002. In 2011, Rodrick’s name was removed from company documents, leaving Oesterblad and his wife, Sarah Shea, as the only managers listed on the documents.

SORArchives says records for 750,000 active sex offenders are available for online searches. The site promises to protect families from the menace of sex offenders in their neighborhoods by providing access to present and past criminal records.

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.

“Even if the sex offender is not required to register that does not mean the record itself goes away,” SORArchive states. “To help stop the threat, you must know how to locate the offenders.”

Customers say information remains online after paying

If offenders want their name and profiles off the website, SORArchives tells them they will have to pay.

But payment is no guarantee of removal, according to the website. And some of those who have paid fees ranging from $79 to $499 say their names and profiles remain online.

“We are not under any legal obligation to remove any valid public record or to be in sync with any official sex offender registry,” SORArchives states.

A woman identified as Sarah Reynolds in customer service provides no explanation of the Offendex criteria. But she writes: “If it is imperative to you that you be removed, perhaps a payment plan can be arranged.”

Some on sites not listed on law-enforcement registries

Not all of the people listed on SOR­Archives and Offendex are registered sex offenders. Some have no criminal records.

Yet their names, addresses and other personal information continue to be profiled on the sex-offender websites for anyone with an Internet connection to view.

In Louisiana, a schoolteacher bought a house owned by a convicted sex offender whose name was removed from all official registries in 2009. Even after being notified that the offender no longer lived in the house and being paid to remove the profile, Offendex and SORArchives continued publishing the woman’s address as if the sex offender still resided there.

“These guys terrorize people all over the country,” said Melvin Dominguez, 58, the Louisiana offender who previously owned the house. “They hurt innocent people.”

Men and women across the country have filed consumer complaints about Offendex, SORArchives and Onlinedetective.

In California, 10 plaintiffs from across the United States filed a racketeering suit against Rodrick and Oesterblad, saying the websites targeted them as part of an extortion scheme.

Lawyers for the website operators said in a court filing this month that the websites are “passive” because operators don’t initiate contact with offenders. They are asking a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit, saying it should not have been filed in California.

“The Websites do not specifically target California or its residents. The Websites simply archive public records of convicted sex offenders in all 50 states,” lawyers wrote. “The information on the Websites is provided to the public nationwide free of charge. No goods or services are actually sold on the Websites.”

Eight plaintiffs say they paid fees to have their profiles and personal information removed, but the websites continued publishing the information anyway.

Two plaintiffs say they have no records as sex offenders. They are relatives of former registered sex offenders who said their names and photographs were posted on the sex-offender websites.

Three plaintiffs were convicted of sex offenses but were not required to register as sex offenders. Two plaintiffs once had to register but are no longer required to do so. The final three are registered sex offenders.

A federal judge in the case acknowledged the potential damage of being publicly labeled a sex offender and last month ordered to keep secret the identities of the plaintiffs. The judge said their physical safety is at stake.

Complaints filed with officials in five states

Complaints about Offendex and the other websites have been filed with local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies for almost a year.

Offenders, their relatives and others who say they have been targeted by the websites say officials won’t act. They say agencies take reports, then decline to open investigations or refer cases elsewhere.

Complaints have been submitted with 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.

One offender said federal prosecutors in Virginia told him they would not open a case.

Neither the FBI nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia would comment. FBI officials in Arizona also declined comment.

Complaints have also been submitted with attorneys general in at least five states, including Montana.

“They don’t take action because of who we are: sex offenders,” said Grainger, who lodged complaints with state and federal authorities in Montana and Arizona. “But we deserve equal protection under the law.”

Officials with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which maintains Arizona’s official online database, said they were unaware of Offendex and the other websites until being contacted by a reporter late last year.

Spokesman Bart Graves said at the time officers studied the website and concluded data published on Offendex wasn’t coming from the state’s website, but they were interested in collecting more information about Offendex. He said officers were consulting with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and would turn over their findings for further investigation.

At least five offenders interviewed for this story said they submitted separate complaints to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

The Virginia Attorney General’s Office told one complainant that it lacked jurisdiction and said “it would be prudent” to contact the Arizona attorney general.

Officials with the Montana Department of Justice said they, too, have sent information and complaints about the websites to the Arizona attorney general.

“The last we heard, they have not been able to resolve any complaints they have on file,” Montana DOJ spokesman John Barnes said. “We did contact the (Federal Trade Commission) and made sure they were aware of what was going on.”

In Grainger’s recorded phone calls, Rodrick said he is used to dealing with law enforcement and that attorneys general will do little more than send out letters before closing cases.

“The attorney generals aren’t going to help you,” Rodrick said during one call, adding later: “This is what we do. We are the Internet.” ..Source.. by Robert Anglen, The Arizona Republic