Backpage founder will face Arizona retrial on charges he participated in scheme to sell sex ads
PHOENIX –
Federal prosecutors in Arizona stated Tuesday they may retry a co-founder of the profitable labeled web site Backpage.com on dozens of prostitution facilitation and cash laundering expenses that alleged he participated in a scheme to promote intercourse advertisements.
A jury in mid-November 2023 convicted Michael Lacey of 1 rely of worldwide concealment cash laundering, acquitted him on one other cash laundering rely and deadlocked on 84 different expenses.
That marked the second trial for Lacey, whose first trial resulted in a mistrial after a decide concluded in 2021 that prosecutors had too many references to baby intercourse trafficking in a case the place nobody confronted such a cost.
On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a proper discover of retrial in federal courtroom in Phoenix in compliance with a deadline U.S. Judge Diane Humetewa set in an order on Jan. 10.
“The United States files this notice of intent to retry Defendant Michael Lacy on the 84 counts for which the jury was unable to reach a verdict and requests that the court set the case for retrial,” U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino wrote within the five-page discover.
Lacey’s lawyer, Paul Cambria, declined remark simply after the discover was filed late Tuesday.
“I have none at the moment,” he informed The Associated Press.
Lacey, 75, was beforehand tried on a complete of 86 prison counts within the case in opposition to him and 4 different Backpage workers.
John Brunst, Backpage’s chief monetary officer, was convicted of 1 rely of conspiracy to violate the Travel Act — a federal regulation barring the usage of interstate commerce to facilitate prostitution in violation of state legal guidelines — and greater than 30 cash laundering counts.
Scott Spear, govt vice chairman for the location, was convicted of 1 rely of conspiracy to violate the Travel Act, greater than a dozen counts of facilitation of prostitution and about 20 cash laundering counts.
Two different former Backpage workers have been acquitted of a conspiracy cost and dozens of counts of facilitation of prostitution.
Before launching Backpage, Lacey based the Phoenix New Times weekly newspaper with James Larkin, who was charged within the case and died by suicide in late July a few week earlier than the second trial in opposition to Backpage’s operators was scheduled to start.
Lacey and Larkin held possession pursuits in different weeklies similar to The Village Voice and finally offered their newspapers in 2013. But they held onto Backpage, which authorities say generated $500 million in prostitution-related income from its inception in 2004 till 2018, when it was shut down by the federal government.
Prosecutors had argued that Backpage’s operators ignored warnings to cease working prostitution advertisements, some involving kids. The operators have been accused of giving free advertisements to intercourse employees and cultivating preparations with others who labored within the intercourse commerce to get them to publish advertisements with the corporate.
Backpage’s operators stated they by no means allowed advertisements for intercourse and assigned workers and automatic instruments to attempt to delete such advertisements. Their authorized staff maintained the content material on the location was protected by the First Amendment.
Prosecutors additionally stated Lacey used cryptocurrency and wired cash to overseas financial institution accounts to launder revenues earned from the location’s advert gross sales after banks raised considerations that they have been getting used for unlawful functions.
A U.S. Government Accountability Office report launched in June 2021 stated the FBI’s means to determine victims and intercourse traffickers had decreased considerably after Backpage was seized by the federal government, as a result of regulation enforcement was acquainted with the location and Backpage was typically aware of requests for info.
In 2018, the location’s gross sales and advertising and marketing director, Dan Hyer, had pleaded responsible to conspiring to facilitate prostitution and acknowledged he participated in a scheme to offer free advertisements to prostitutes to win over their business. Ferrer additionally pleaded responsible to a separate federal conspiracy case in Arizona and to state cash laundering expenses in California.
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Associated Press author Scott Sonner contributed to this report from Reno, Nevada.
