Two former executives for the now-shuttered categorized website Backpage.com are scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in Phoenix for conspiring to facilitate prostitution by promoting intercourse advertisements.
A prosecutor has beneficial 5 years of probation and restitution funds for former CEO Carl Ferrer and gross sales director Dan Hyer, each of whom pleaded responsible to conspiracy in 2018. The prosecutor stated each males acknowledged their crimes and cooperated with authorities by testifying in opposition to an organization founder in the course of the 2023 trial.
Backpage founder Michael Lacey was convicted of a single depend of worldwide concealment cash laundering and sentenced to 5 years in jail and fined $3 million, although he stays free whereas he pursues an attraction. Chief monetary officer John Brunst and govt vice chairman Scott Spear are every serving 10-year sentences for conspiracy and cash laundering convictions.
Prosecutors had argued that Backpage’s operators ignored warnings to cease working prostitution advertisements, some involving kids. The operators had been accused of giving free advertisements to intercourse employees and cultivating preparations with others who labored within the business to get them to submit advertisements with the corporate.
Backpage’s operators stated they by no means allowed advertisements for intercourse and made an effort to attempt to delete such advertisements by assigning staff to take away them and creating automated instruments. Their authorized workforce maintained the content material on the positioning was protected by the First Modification.
In pleading responsible, Ferrer acknowledged understanding a majority of Backpage’s revenues got here from escort advertisements, conspiring to sanitize advertisements by eradicating pictures and phrases that had been indicative of prostitution and publishing a revised model of the notices.
In sentencing memos, each the prosecutor and Ferrer’s attorneys say he helped shut down the positioning by his cooperation.
His legal professionals say Ferrer offered proof linking defendants to the legal enterprise and testified that Backpage’s improve in income stemmed principally from prostitution.
Hyer has beforehand participated in a scheme to present free advertisements to intercourse employees in a bid to attract them away from rivals and win over their future enterprise.
His lawyer stated her shopper is sincerely remorseful for his actions and contributed on to the convictions of different defendants.
Lacey’s first trial in 2021 led to a mistrial when one other decide concluded prosecutors had too many references to baby intercourse trafficking in a case the place nobody confronted such a cost.
Earlier than launching Backpage, Lacey based the Phoenix New Occasions weekly newspaper with James Larkin, who was charged within the case and died by suicide in 2023 simply 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 bought their newspapers in 2013. However they held onto Backpage, which authorities say generated $500 million in prostitution-related income from its inception in 2004 till 2018, when the federal government shut it down.
A U.S. Authorities Accountability Workplace report launched in June 2021 stated the FBI’s means to establish victims and intercourse traffickers had decreased considerably after Backpage was seized by the federal government, as a result of legislation enforcement was conversant in the positioning and Backpage was typically aware of requests for data.
