PHOENIX — A federal judge in Arizona on Wednesday sentenced former Backpage.com co-owner Michael Lacey to 60 months in prison plus a $3 million fine, after a highly protracted case in which the government contended that the website facilitated prostitution.
Two other former Backpage executives, Scott Spear and John Brunst, were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The sentences, issued by U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa, are the latest development in the controversial case, which was originally launched against the website’s operators by the Justice Department in 2018 and led to a mistrial for prosecutorial misconduct.
During a two-day sentencing hearing, federal prosecutors recommended that the three defendants be sentenced to 20 years each. They reportedly referred to Lacey as the “Don of a criminal family” and “the same as a drug kingpin,” and asked the judge to order their immediate surrender to marshals because they represented a "risk of flight by suicide.”
As XBIZ reported, in April, Humetewa acquitted Lacey and his two co-defendants of 63 out of 84 counts, after a jury deadlocked on prostitution-related charges against Lacey in November 2023, though it found him guilty on one count of international concealment money laundering and convicted Spear and Brunst on multiple counts.
Although today’s sentencing was officially only for the few remaining charges, Arizona journalist Stephen Lemons reported via X.com that Humetewa said she would use “even counts that the defendants were acquitted of to determine their sentence” though Humetewa later “seemed to reverse herself” on that plan.
The judge also allowed victims’ statements from individuals and relatives of individuals who alleged they had been trafficked through Backpage, even though Lacey’s sentencing was only for a money laundering charge. No testimony was offered by any individuals affected by the supposed money laundering.
“Essentially, the feds want Lacey, a longtime free speech advocate, to die in prison,” Lemons, the foremost authority on the case, wrote for Front Page Confidential, a Lacey-aligned online publication, in April. “They’ve already caused the death of Jim Larkin, Lacey’s longtime business partner, fellow newspaperman and co-defendant in the Backpage case.”
Larkin committed suicide in July 2023. He was reportedly exhausted by the financial burden imposed on his family by the federal authorities’ unusually lengthy and persistent campaign against him and the other Backpage.com principals.
Humetawa was a protege of the late Senator John McCain. Lemons and others familiar with Arizona and Phoenix-area politics have noted the longtime animosity of the McCain political clan toward Lacey and his publications due to in-depth reporting over the years about alleged scandals and misdeeds involving McCain, his family and associates.
Mike Lacey's Courthouse Statement
Lacey issued the following statement from the courthouse immediately after the sentencing:
For over 50 years, Jim Larkin was my friend and business partner. His suicide is the tragedy of this prosecution. Larkin consulted with the nation’s finest first amendment attorneys throughout the history of Backpage and I believe he always followed the advice of the lawyers. That’s just who Jim was.
Law enforcement testified in court that they could not arrest anyone based upon the ads in Backpage. Nonetheless, within the 30 million ads annually, there are people with stories that are difficult to hear without heartache.
It is also true that I made no decisions regarding Backpage. It was a business and I did not work in business. I ran the journalists and editors. I wrote a considerable amount of columns and articles. Our writers won more than 3,800 awards, including a Pulitzer.
Much has been made that I opened a trust in Europe for my children. These funds were transferred at the suggestion of attorneys when FBI agents intimidated American bankers from doing business with me.
I was found guilty on one count of concealment. This is simply a mistake. Nothing was concealed. My lawyers filed a notice (an FBAR) annually with the same federal government that is now prosecuting me. The government knows exactly how much money is in the account and where the account is.
I have known fellow defendants Scott Spear and Jed Brunst for decades and know them to be both honest and honorable. The accusations against them are astonishing and flat wrong.”
The case against Backpage — dubbed by politicians from both parties “an online brothel” — was a central issue in the passing of the controversial FOSTA-SESTA legislation.
Lacey, Spear and Brunst had requested probation in their sentencing memorandums, with Lacey contending that his only felony conviction was for a “financial crime that he purportedly committed upon the idea and advice of two credentialed lawyers, wherein all reporting rules were followed.”
Spear’s memorandum noted, “The government wants this court to believe that Backpage.com is akin to the worst pimp in the nation. Mr. Spear and his co-defendants wrongly became the scapegoats in a time of unprecedented hysteria surrounding sex trafficking.”
