Thousands of people buy and sell items or advertise services on Craigslist every day says Dallas Criminal lawyer Clint Broden.
Although most transactions go without a hitch, Craigslist has also proved to be a medium for crimes, both premeditated and spontaneous.
The Dallas Morning News recently reported on how a man in the city pulled a gun on a car buyer after a car purchase turned sour.
An Arlington resident met a man around 3:30 p.m. on January 9 at the Kimball Square Apartments in the 4500 block of W. Kiest Boulevard in West Oak Cliff, after responding to an ad on Craigslist.
The Dallas Morning News reported on how Casual Smith, 22, said he paid $1,500 for a black Ford Explorer. As he drove away from the apartment complex, he realized the brakes didn’t work, according to a police report.
Smith then approached the suspect and asked for his money back. The report said the man then pulled a gun on Smith and threatened to shoot him. Smith called the police. When officers arrived, they found the apartment unit where the suspect had been was vacant, according to the police report.
Craiglist has been linked to a number of high profile crimes in recent years.
Last year Richard Beasley, a self-styled preacher from Ohio, was sentenced to death over the killings of three down-and-out men. Beasley, 53, was convicted of joining forces with a teenager in 2011 to use the promise of jobs on a southeast Ohio farm to lure them into robberies. Three men, who responded to Craigslist ads were killed, and a fourth who was wounded, testified at Beasley’s trial.
The so called “Craigslist killer” was sentenced to death in April, 2013.
Beasley has not been the only defendant to be labelled the “Craigslist killer,” by the media. In April 2009, Philip Markoff, a 24-year-old medical student from Boston was charged with the murder of Julissa Brisman and the armed robberies of two other women. He met them through the adult services advertisements on Craigslist.
Charles Oliver, a man from Illinois, was recently charged with raping five women he allegedly solicited on Craigslist. Prosecutors believe there may be some 20 additional victims yet to be found. Prosecutors claim he hired them as escorts through the website, before torturing and sexually assaulting them.
In one of the more bizarre Craigslist linked cases to make news headlines, Morgan Triplett, a 20-year-old California college student who claimed she was attacked and raped was charged with staging the incident by posting ads on Craigslist, calling for men to attack her in exchange for sex.
The internet has changed the landscape of the criminal law. You don’t have to be one of the FBIs most wanted cybercriminals to be accused of committing a crime online. Our attorneys have represented many defendants who have been charged with Internet linked crimes.
