PHOENIX (CN) — Breahannah Leary sat still in the witness box in a federal courtroom in Phoenix Wednesday, keeping her gaze low. All around her, screens displayed photos of her topless in her underwear attached to phrases like “pleasing you is my mission.”
The 36-year-old spoke slowly, her voice lightly wavering as she answered questions about advertisements placed on Backpage.com promoting sexual services.
“Within a minute, my phone was ringing off the hook,” she said about the first time she posted an ad in 2012. “I did go and have dates with gentlemen … acts of prostitution.”
Leary posted her own ads on Backpage until 2015, when she became involved with a pimp in Denver who posted ads for her, controlling when and how often she went on “dates” with customers, usually in hotel rooms.
Federal prosecutors used Leary’s testimony against Michael Lacey and four other former executives and employees of the classified advertising website Backpage, which was shut down in 2018 under accusations of facilitating prostitution and money laundering. Lacey and the others face a 100-count felony indictment for their roles in the company that’s been widely accused of providing a haven for pimps and sex traffickers.
Defense attorneys in the case aren't arguing that prostitution never occurred on the site. Rather, they say the company didn’t participate in the promotion of prostitution in any way, and in fact it worked diligently with law enforcement to catch pimps and traffickers.
When prosecutor Margeret Perlmeter asked Leary if she recognized any of the defendants sitting in the courtroom, Leary said she didn’t.
Paul Cambria, representing Lacey, honed in on this, telling the jury that Backpage simply sold her the ad space, and it was up to Leary to decide what to do with it, legal or not.
“It wasn’t someone at Backpage who made your ad?” he asked.
Leary said no.
Eric Kessler, defending former Backpage executive vice president Scott Spear, added that nearly half of the ads Leary posted before her pimp took over in 2015 were flagged by Backpage moderators, demonstrating an apparent effort to reduce illegal activity on the site.
Kessler focused on a disclaimer attached to one of her ads that told Backpage users that she wasn't there to sell sex, but rather to sell companionship. But Leary had already testified earlier that the disclaimer was a lie to throw off law enforcement.
Defense attorneys challenged Leary’s testimony before the judge during the lunch break, warning that it crept too close to “a day in the life” style testimony that contributed to a previous judge declaring a mistrial in the case in 2021.
“It’s a very slippery area,” said U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa, a Barack Obama appointee.
“Be very mindful of it,” she warned the government.
The defense’s frustrations with the day’s testimony only escalated, culminating in more motions for mistrial. Humetewa already denied two motions for mistrial over mentions of child prostitution and trafficking in September.
The defense’s renewed qualms came during the testimony of Isaac Luria, who worked for the Auburn Theological Society in 2011 when it and other religious leaders asked the defendants to shut Backpage down in response to reports of rampant child prostitution and trafficking on the site. Luria said Lacey grew “increasingly agitated” in a 2011 meeting before telling the religious leaders that “consenting adults can do what consenting adults want to do.”
“My conclusion was he believed prostitution was occurring on the website and he thought it was legitimate,” Luria told the jury.
David Eisenberg, representing Backpage operations manager Andrew Padilla, said the jury has been “greatly prejudiced,” by mentions of child trafficking.
Prosecutor Austin Berry countered that 101 of the defense’s exhibits mentioning child trafficking “greatly undermine” their argument that the government has tainted the jury, saying the defense introduced “as much if not more” mentions of children.
But Cambria clarified that the defense’s exhibits didn’t accuse Backpage of those crimes, while many of the government’s exhibits and witnesses have.
Humetewa previously offered to give the jury limiting instructions every time children are mentioned, reminding them that the defense isn’t accused of any crimes against children. But the defense asked her not to do so, as more mentions would only make it worse.
“No instruction will undue the prejudice,” Cambria said.
Humetewa initially denied the mistrial motion during the afternoon break, but said she’d take the night to consider it after another defense attorney renewed the motion at the end of the day.
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