Trial over Backpage prostitution accusations delayed to late August

PHOENIX (CN) — A federal judge delayed a trial against Michael Lacey and former employees of backpage.com by three weeks following the death of co-defendant and backpage.com co-founder James Larkin. 

Larkin died from a self-inflicted gunshot just a week before he and six others were scheduled to face a three-month, 100-count trial over charges of facilitating prostitution, money laundering and conspiracy. The Department of Justice dropped the charges against Larkin in a Friday afternoon status conference. 

U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa vacated the Aug. 8 start in light of Larkin’s death, resetting the trial to run from Aug. 29 to Nov. 9 to allow the defense time to regroup before trial. 

The defense initially asked for a two-month delay in a Wednesday motion filed under seal. Friday’s hearing began with a 35-minute private hearing to discuss “sensitive issues” regarding the motion.

The United States countered Wednesday with a motion of its own, insisting that a two-week stay is more than enough time to allow the defense to handle any administrative problems arising from the death of one of the main defendants. They chose only two weeks because it would allow the trial to still end before the holidays, rather than delaying by two months and going through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. 

Joy Bertrand, defending Joye Vaught, backpage.com’s former assistant operations manager, said two weeks isn’t enough time “to allow us to effectively defend this matter,” and asked to begin trial the Wednesday after Labor Day. 

“The best we can do given this transition is a four-week continuum,” Bertrand said. “I don’t believe that would create an undue inconvenience is an already inconvenient situation."

Bertrand said the change in the number of defendants will affect the defense’s budget, necessitating more time to reallocate time and responsibilities among attorneys. Paul Cambria, defending Lacey, added that the team still needs to assign a “hot seat” or a trial technician in charge of displaying exhibits as they’re entered into evidence and discussed in court. 

Prosecuting attorney Michael Rapp objected, questioning why those administrative duties haven’t already been taken care of.

“That seems like this would come up in the beginning of the case or the middle of the case,” he said. “This case was in trial.”

Humetewa met the two parties in the middle, allowing a three week delay and extending the end of the trial one week, intending to finish before Thanksgiving to avoid losing members of the current jury panel.

“There’s a great likelihood that we will lose a tremendous number of them,” she said. 

She plans to “modify and streamline” the jury questionnaire to more efficiently weed out those who will have scheduling conflicts with the new trial dates and more easily select a jury for the trial. 

A new final pretrial conference date hasn’t yet been set, though Humetewa said she will do so soon at the end of the hearing. She also plans on showing revised jury instructions to both parties soon. It’s unclear what the jury will be told regarding Larkins’ death, or whether knowledge of the manner of his death would disqualify a jury member in the court’s eyes. 

The case went to trial once before, when U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich declared a mistrial in 2021 after only a few days, saying the prosecution’s case focused too heavily on victims of child sex trafficking — a crime the founders of backpage.com have been accused of outside of court but have never faced charges for. 

Lacey and Larkin, co-founders and former front men of the Phoenix New Times, founded backpage.com in 2004 as a response to Craigslist. The site allowed users to post personal classified ads like they would on the back page of a newspaper. 

But like Craigslist, the website attracted people advertising “escorts,” “sensual massages” and other adult-oriented services. Prosecutors say the defendants allowed and even helped craft advertisements for prostitution using “thinly-veiled” code words like “escort,” rather than “prostitute” and “GFE,” meaning “girlfriend experience.”

Lacey, Larkin and five others were indicted in 2018 for their roles in backpage.com, which the FBI seized soon after the indictment was released. Then-CEO Carl Ferrer pleaded guilty to conspiring to facilitate prostitution individually, and pleaded guilty on behalf of the company to money laundering. 

But Lacey, Larkin and the others insisted upon their innocence from the start, saying they screened and removed ads that seemed to promote prostitution, and that they always cooperated with law enforcement investigations into potential abuse or trafficking going through their site.

Two internal Department of Justice memos released in 2012 and 2013 indicate that investigators found no evidence by that time of any reckless or illegal conduct.

Follow @JournalistJoeAZ

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit