PHOENIX (AP) — Michael Lacey, a founder of the lucrative classified site Backpage.com, was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for a single money
FILE - Former Backpage.com owner Michael Lacey attends a Senate committee on Jan. 10, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. PHOENIX — Michael Lacey, a founder of the lucrative classified site Backpage.com, was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for a single money laundering count in a sprawling case involving allegations of a yearslong scheme to promote and profit from prostitution through classified ads.
Lacey’s lawyers say their client was focused on running an alternative newspaper chain and wasn’t involved in day-to-day operations of Backpage. Prosecutors said Lacey used cryptocurrency and wired money to foreign bank accounts to launder revenues earned from the site’s ad sales after banks raised concerns that they were being used for illegal purposes.
Two other Backpage employees were acquitted of charges by a jury at the same 2023 trial where Lacey, Brunst and Spear were convicted of some counts. A Government Accountability Office report released in June noted that the FBI’s ability to identify victims and sex traffickers had decreased significantly after Backpage was seized by the government because law enforcement was familiar with the site and Backpage was generally responsive to requests for information.
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