Backpage sentence handed down: Yesterday, Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey was sentenced to 60 months in prison. Lacey, who has been dragged through this legal ordeal for years (an ordeal which contributed to the suicide of his longtime partner/co-founder, Jim Larkin), was found guilty last fall of one count of international concealment of money laundering. Lacey and Larkin long ago began to attract the scrutiny—and worse—of federal prosecutors for their roles in running the classified ad site, Backpage, which prostitutes used to advertise their services.
"This is not a case where the defendant went off on his own to hide an asset," wrote Lacey's lawyers. "Instead, in the years that preceded the international wire transfer at issue, federal law enforcement officers had visited his banks and suggested to those banks that it would be bad for their reputation to have him as a client, which then resulted in the banks terminating their relationship with him. This occurred when there were no charges pending."
