Lots of notable front page sentencing issues in next week’s sentencing of Backpage
I have not closely followed the legal sagas that have surrounded the website Backpage, which was the huge classified advertising website shut down and seized by federal law enforcement in April 2018. But next week the Backpage saga has a federal sentencing stage, and this Law360 piece provides a flavor for just some of the issues raised:
Prosecutors asked an Arizona federal judge Monday to sentence two former executives of the defunct classifieds service Backpage.com and the site’s co-founder to 20 years in prison after they were found guilty of several counts over an alleged $500 million prostitution scheme.
In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said the crimes former executives Scott Spear and John Brunst and Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey were convicted of caused extraordinary harm and amounted to “one of the internet’s largest and longest-running criminal empires.”
Prosecutors say the website facilitated prostitution through ads. Spear and Brunst were convicted of multiple counts after a 28-day trial in November while two other executives were acquitted. Lacey was found guilty of one count of money laundering; the jury was deadlocked on dozens of other charges against him. The mixed verdict ended a sprawling case that saw its first trial end in a mistrial in 2021….
In April, U.S. District Judge Diane J. Humetewa rejected some of the jury’s findings, tossing nearly three dozen transactional money laundering charges, as well as Travel Act charges against Lacey, but kept the rest of the verdict intact. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 27 and 28. Prosecutors said Monday they were “unaware of any mitigating circumstances” for the purposes of sentencing. Spear, Brunst and Lacey showed no remorse following their convictions, prosecutors said…. The prosecutors argued that victim impact statements submitted to the court don’t fully encapsulate the harm Backpage inflicted, saying some trafficking victims were killed by perpetrators who found them on the site.
Lacey, Spear and Brunst all requested probation in their own sentencing memorandums filed Monday, arguing that they never intentionally broke the law. Lacey claimed 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 similarly said in his memorandum that his actions were in line with a law-abiding life…. Brunst said he was never employed by Backpage, but rather worked for Village Voice Media Holdings starting in 1992 and later at Medalist Holdings, a successor entity after VVMH sold its newspapers.
Over at Reason, the arguments surrounding one defendant get extra attention in a piece here headlined “Feds Seek 20-Year Sentence for Backpage Co-Founder Michael Lacey; It’s an insane ask for someone convicted of just one nonviolent offense.” Here is an excerpt:
Lacey was charged — along with other former Backpage executives — of using Backpage to knowingly facilitate prostitution, in violation of the U.S. Travel Act. Two of the defendants were acquitted of all such offenses and two of the defendants were found guilty of some of them. But the jury could not reach a conclusion when it came to Lacey. U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa found there was insufficient evidence to sustain most of the remaining 84 counts against him.
Now, prosecutors want the judge to simply act, for sentencing purposes, as if those charges are all true. Federal prosecutors are also putting Lacey on trial for these charges again — which means that if he is eventually convicted, he could wind up being sentenced twice for the same conduct.
This case and these defendants have many more notable elements, and I found reviewing some of the sentencing memoranda fascinating — eg, the government’s memo reports that the PSR recommended 1080 months (90 years) for Spear, who is 73 years old. Here, thanks to Law360, are the sentencing submissions: