Backpage.com Founder Michael Lacey Sentenced To 5 Years, Fined $3M For Money Laundering

PHOENIX (AP) — Michael Lacey, a founder of the lucrative classified site Backpage.com, was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison and fined $3 million 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.

A jury convicted Lacey, 76, of a single count of international concealment money laundering last year, but deadlocked on 84 other prostitution facilitation and money laundering charges. U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa later acquitted Lacey of dozens of charges for insufficient evidence, but he still faces about 30 prostitution facilitation and money laundering charges.

Authorities say the site generated $500 million in prostitution-related revenue from its inception in 2004 until it was shut down by the government in 2018.

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.

But Humetewa told Lacey during Wednesday’s sentencing he was aware of the allegations against Backpage and did nothing.

“In the face of all this, you held fast,” Humetewa said. “You didn’t do a thing.”

Two other Backpage executives, Chief Financial Officer John Brunst and Executive Vice President Scott Spear, also were convicted last year and were each sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in prison.

The judge ordered Lacey and the two executives to report to the U.S. Marshals Service in two weeks to start serving their sentences.

Prosecutors said the three defendants were motivated by greed, promoted prostitution while masquerading as a legitimate classified business and misled anti-trafficking organizations and law enforcement officials about