Backpage founder Michael Lacey was sentenced yesterday to five years in prison and fined $3 million after being convicted on one count of money laundering. Lacey, 76, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, the Department of Justice said in a press release.
[...] Authorities alleged that Backpage generated over $500 million in revenue from running a forum that facilitated prostitution. While Lacey argued that he wasn't involved in day-to-day operations, US District Judge Diane Humetewa "told Lacey during Wednesday's sentencing he was aware of the allegations against Backpage and did nothing," according to the Associated Press.
"In the face of all this, you held fast," Humetewa reportedly said. "You didn't do a thing." The US government recommended 20-year prison sentences for each of the three defendants.
[...] Lacey will fight the sentencing. "Paul Cambria, Mr. Lacey's lawyer, called the sentencing on Wednesday a 'mistake' and said that they would appeal, adding that there was evidence that Mr. Lacey never concealed financial information. A lawyer for Mr. Brunst, Gary Lincenberg, said his client also planned to appeal," The New York Times wrote.
[...] In November 2023, a jury in US District Court for the District of Arizona convicted Lacey of international concealment money laundering but returned no verdict on 85 other charges related to money laundering and facilitation of prostitution. In April, Humetewa acquitted Lacey on 50 of the charges that the jury did not reach a verdict on. Even "after viewing the record in the light most favorable to the Government, the Court finds there is insufficient of evidence to support convictions" on those counts, she wrote.
[...] Backpage co-founder and CEO Carl Ferrer agreed to plead guilty in 2018 and cooperated with authorities on the investigation into Backpage. Ferrer could still go to prison, but his "plea agreement contemplates that he will not be sentenced until the conclusion of his cooperation," the US government has said.
[...] In September 2021, a previous judge handling the Backpage case declared a mistrial, finding that US prosecutors unfairly tainted the jury by focusing too heavily on claims of child sex trafficking in a case that did not involve any charges of child sex trafficking. At the time, Judge Susan Brnovich said she gave the government leeway to mention child sex trafficking, but the "government abused that leeway."
Previously on SoylentNews:
DoJ Lets Cops Know SESTA/FOSTA Is For Shutting Down Websites, Not Busting Sex Traffickers - 20180617
Backpage CEO Takes Plea Deal, Will Testify Against Other Executives; President Signs FOSTA-SESTA - 20180413
« Firewall Rules: Not as Secure as You Think | Mysterious New Organism Found In Mono Lake Could Rewrite The History Of Life »
Related Stories
Backpage's CEO Carl Ferrer took a plea deal one day before the site got shut down:
The CEO and co-founder of the classified ad website Backpage.com cut a plea deal with state and federal prosecutors, admitting that he knew that the site had become a massive online marketplace for prostitution. Carl Ferrer, 57, agreed to plead guilty to charges in state courts in Texas and California and federal charges in Arizona in a bid to resolve an array of criminal investigations he was facing over his role in the site. The plea deal appears to limit Ferrer's total potential prison time to no more than five years.
"I have long been aware that the vast majority of these advertisements are, in fact, advertisements for prostitution services (which are not protected by the First Amendment and which are illegal in 49 states and much of Nevada)," Ferrer acknowledged in a written statement that was part of the plea bargain.
During a lengthy Senate investigation, Ferrer and other Backpage officials insisted they were policing the website aggressively to remove such advertising. However, Ferrer admitted in the plea deal that those efforts were just window dressing. "I worked with my co-conspirators to create 'moderation' processes through which Backpage would remove terms and pictures that were particularly indicative of prostitution and then publish a revised version of the ad," he said in the plea document. "It was merely intended to create a veneer of deniability for Backpage."
The Washington Post reports that Ferrer agreed to testify against co-founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin.
The organizers of the Women's March have tweeted their opposition to the Backpage shutdown. Some conservatives are not amused, but sex workers have been critical of the shutdown and the passage of the SESTA law:
"Girls are going back to the streets and they are going to die in the streets, and nobody cares," said Calida, a mother of two, who said she used to do street work and fears she will have to start again to make ends meet. "Everybody is terrified."
DOJ Lets Cops Know SESTA/FOSTA Is For Shutting Down Websites, Not Busting Sex Traffickers
[SESTA/FOSTA] is in force and all it's doing is hurting efforts to track down sex traffickers and harming sex workers whose protections were already minimal. Sex traffickers, however, don't appear to be bothered by the new law. But that's because the law wasn't written to target sex traffickers, as a top DOJ official made clear at a law enforcement conference on child exploitation. Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan's comments make it clear SESTA/FOSTA won't be used to dismantle criminal organizations and rescue victims of sex traffickers. It's there to give the government easy wins over websites while sex traffickers continue unmolested.
In April, Backpage.com – the internet's leading forum to advertise child prostitution – was seized and shut down, thanks to the collective action by CEOS and our federal and state partners. The Backpage website was a criminal haven where sex traffickers marketed their young victims. The Backpage takedown – and the contemporaneous arrests of individuals allegedly responsible for administering the site – struck a monumental blow against child sex traffickers.
But other sites inevitably will seek to fill the void left by Backpage, and we must be vigilant in bringing those criminals to justice as well. With the recent passage of the SESTA-FOSTA legislation, state and local prosecutors are now positioned to more effectively prosecute criminals that host online sex trafficking markets that victimize our children.
"Criminals" that "host sex trafficking markets." That's the target. That's any website that might be used by actual sex traffickers to engage in actual sex trafficking. There's no dedicated web service for sex trafficking -- at least not out in the open where Section 230 immunity used to matter. This is all about taking down websites for hosting any content perceived as sex trafficking-related. It wasn't enough to hang Backpage and its execs. The government will be scanning sites for this content and then targeting the website for content posted by third parties it seems mostly uninterested in pursuing.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31, @11:06PM (1 child)
That's the master key to all our witch hunts now. Just put up the charge, and *poof*, life ruined.
Doesn't look good for frenchi over there
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday September 01, @09:50AM
Unfortunately that is far too true
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196112/ [imdb.com]
tl:dw
36 people charged and convicted of child molestation by a prosecutor trying to make a name for himself.
34 cleared after almost 20 years of appeals, 2 died in prison waiting on their appeals.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31, @11:09PM (5 children)
Free speech: sounds good on paper, hey lets write it down!
If you think about what speech was back when that was enacted, it was someone saying, or really *doing*, anything at all in the privacy of their own home. Or not their own home -- in public, in front of people. Actions weren't, but words were. You could say *anything*, because congress can't prevent it. Your annoyance is not a legal violation. You could write it. Send it via mail. Print it. Distribute it far and wide. Put it in a movie. No restrictions.
Now? Good luck with that. We see almost daily how "free speech" means nothing now.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 31, @11:25PM (3 children)
That's because the internet granted everybody a broadcast medium. Can't have that, can we?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01, @05:32AM
Wow! Definitely a pro-censorship tinge in all those "Troll" mods. Pretty sad...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01, @08:30AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03, @02:28PM
Not everybody. A very few very powerful people who broadcast propaganda. What do expect to happen?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday September 01, @03:55PM
Look up the Alien and Sedition Acts, and how many newspaper editors were locked up in the early days of the country. The problem continued through laws against birth control information, and Schenck getting imprisoned for anti-draft leaflets (upheld by Supreme Court).
Post Brandenburg, we have the strongest legal protections for speech we've ever had.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday September 01, @01:02AM (1 child)
One of the problems Napster faced was that their centralized system made them a big target. Networks work better when the participants are peers and there is no center. Not only is this technically better, it is politically better. The voters who want to stop things and tear things down, for whatever reason, and the politicians who pander to them, have no individual people or things to target. They may well dig up someone to be a scapegoat, and dish out harsh punishment to scare folks, but it won't stop the activity they want stopped.
The timing on this is rather convenient for those politicians running for election on some sort of moral purity plank. There's always an uptick in legal harassment of porn related businesses in the run up to an election.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 01, @01:12AM
They might not want to stop the activity if they can track the users. That scapegoat just may be the real target of the hunt. They cast a wide net to distract attention with frivolous political theater.