By Aaron Earls
Federal authorities seized Backpage.com last week (April 6) and now a grand jury has indicted seven people behind the website on charges of facilitating prostitution and human trafficking.
Revenue from the site topped $135 million in 2014, according to a Senate report. The California Department of Justice found more than 90 percent of the site’s earnings came from adult ads.
Child advocates asserted the website allowed underage trafficking with traffickers using code words for teenagers and children.
The website closed its “adult services listings” last year, but many were simply moved to the dating section, according to The New York Times.
On Monday, April 9, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix unsealed the indictments against those associated with the website.
Two of those named were Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, co-founders of the website. The FBI raided Lacey’s house on the day the website was seized.
According to The Arizona Republic, the indictment charged “the pair, along with others, of conspiring to knowingly facilitate prostitution offenses through the website,” including some trafficked teenage girls.
Lacey and Larkin had defended their site using the Communications Decency Act, which protects internet platforms from being liable for how others use them.
That regulation will soon be weakened by a bill Congress passed last month that makes it easier for states to prosecute and victims to sue internet companies of hosting content that enables sex trafficking.
President Trump has yet to sign the law, but The New York Times reports that Craigslist has already responded to the bill by taking down its personal ads section.
The federal grand jury spent more than a year hearing evidence and found Backpage violated the existing law.
A report by the U.S. Senate, based on internal emails among Backpage employees, concluded the site intentionally hid potentially illegal activity.
The indictment includes 40 counts of money laundering, 50 instances in which ads were used for prostitution, and experiences of 17 victims, some as young as 14, who were trafficked through the website, including one victim who was allegedly killed by a customer she met through an ad.
According to The Arizona Republic, employees of Backpage told U.S. Senate investigators it was common knowledge that prostitution was being conducted on the site.
Related:
- House Passes Bill to Fight Online Sex Trafficking
- Human Trafficking Swings Community Outreach Door Wide Open
- ‘Miracle’ Airline Agent Saves Girls From Human Trafficking
- Shelters for Trafficking Victims Aid Their Healing
AARON EARLS (@WardrobeDoor) is online editor of Facts & Trends.
