Editor’s note: The following contains the analysis and opinions of the author and no one else. The author does not speak for the defendants.

PLEASE SEE UPDATES ON SPEAR’S CONDITION BELOW

On Friday, attorneys for former Village Voice Media executive vice president Scott Spear, one of the #Backpage3 defendants, filed an emergency motion with federal Judge Diane Humetewa in Phoenix, saying that Spear, who turns 74 in November, is being denied various medications by his jailers, and as a result is suffering a mental health crisis and could attempt to harm himself if the matter is not quickly addressed.

The motion describes alarming behavior on Spear’s part, including refusing legal visits from his attorneys and sounding confused, paranoid and out of touch with reality during phone conversations with friends and family.

On Saturday, after being granted limited jurisdiction by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case is pending, Humetewa ordered CoreCivic, a private prison operator with a facility in Florence, Ariz., where Spear and his codefendants are being held, to provide Spear with his necessary medications and to reply to Spear’s emergency motion by 11 a.m., Monday. She scheduled a hearing on the matter for 4 p.m. the same day.

Spear, along with his co-defendants, former VVM executive editor Michael Lacey, 76, and former VVM chief financial officer Jed Brunst, 72, were convicted in November 2023 after an eleven week trial in which the government attempted to hold them and two other defendants vicariously liable for illegal acts committed by others, which prosecutors connected to ads for escorts, massage and other legal adult services listed on the classified ad site Backpage.com.

The five defendants faced multiple charges stemming from a 100-count federal indictment brought in 2018. Two former Backpage employees were found not guilty on all counts. Lacey was convicted of one count of money laundering. Brunst and Spear were found guilty on various counts of money laundering, conspiracy and violations of the U.S. Travel Act, which makes it illegal to use a means of interstate commerce to facilitate a business enterprise involved in breaking state laws against prostitution.

On Aug. 28, Humetewa sentenced Lacey to five years in prison. Spear and Brunst were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.  The three men self-surrendered to U.S. Marshals on Sept. 11 at the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix.

According to the motion on Spear’s behalf, defense attorneys provided both the marshals’ service and the federal probation department with a list of the numerous medications Spear was taking and a memo from his doctor outlining the potentially life-threatening consequences he could suffer if the medications were abruptly stopped. Spear and the others were then transferred to CoreCivic, which is under contract with the U.S. Government to house prisoners.

Spear’s motion claims that “once in the custody of the Marshal at CoreCivic . . . virtually all Spear’s medications were stopped,” resulting in severe consequences.

The motion describes a phone conversation between Spear and his sister, in which Spear told her that he does not know where he is and questioned whether she was actually his sister. In other telephone calls, Spear “manifested anger and a belief that his loved ones had conspired to place him in jail,” according to the motion.

Spear has also “mentioned talking with Jim Larkin as if Larkin was still alive.” Larkin, the former publisher, CEO and co-founder of VVM, committed suicide in July 2023, just days before the beginning of the second Backpage trial, the first having ended in a mistrial in Sept. 2021 due to egregious prosecutorial misconduct.

The motion also argues that CoreCivic,  formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, is obligated to “provide adequate medical care to inmates” in accordance with the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments, including “deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of prisoners.”

In contrast to Spear, Lacey and Brunst are, by all accounts, in good health. I have spoken to Lacey by phone, where he expressed worry over Spear’s condition.

Though friends and family have been able to visit the prisoners face-to-face through a plexiglass divider, I have been banned from entering the facility.  CoreCivic’s policy is to bar the media from regular visits to prisoners.

I have submitted a formal media request to visit Lacey, but I have yet to receive an answer.

Preventable and Predictable

Spear’s medical condition was discussed during the Aug. 28 sentencing hearing for the three defendants before Humetewa. Spears’ attorneys argued that Spear should be allowed to remain out of custody, on bond, pending his appeal, in part due to his failing health. His attorneys noted that when he was arrested in 2018 he was held for several days without his meds and it took him months to recover.

If that request was denied, Spear’s attorneys asked for other alternatives to incarceration, such as home confinement. And if those were denied, they asked the judge to allow Spear to self-surrender at a later date, rather than being taken into custody at the conclusion of the hearing. (Humetewa eventually granted that last request.)

Assistant U.S. Attorney Austin Berry argued that the defendants all should be remanded into custody immediately. Berry, whose expertise is prosecuting child porn cases, told the court that there was a risk of “flight by suicide” if Lacey, Brunst, and Spear were allowed to self-surrender. He called it “the ultimate risk of nonappearance,” and made mention of Larkin’s tragic death.

“These folks have a tremendous incentive [to harm themselves],” Berry stated. “It’s not a speculative thing to say given the fact that one of the defendants did precisely that in this case.”

Berry also contended that the medical care one receives in prison is so good that the elderly live longer in prison than out — a comment that has not aged well over just two weeks.

Though Spear’s attorneys had filed medical information with the court under seal, Berry specifically made mention of Spear’s “mental issues,” stating that there were “psychiatric conditions that give us concern about whether he is a good candidate to remain out or for self-surrender.”

This, notwithstanding that Spear had been out-of-custody, on his own recognizance for six years, after being arrested and released without bond in 2018.

Bruce Feder, one of Spear’s attorneys, told the court that Berry’s discussion of “flight by suicide” was “one of the most bizarre I have heard in 40-plus years of being a lawyer.”  Feder said that unless Spear was abruptly deprived of his medications, which would create serious side effects including potential suicidality, Spear was at no risk of suicide.

“The only concern about suicide with Mr. Spear is if he doesn’t get his medication,” Feder said. “And the only reason he’s not going to get his medication is if he is incarcerated pending appeal.”

CoreCivic’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Spear’s condition. But last week, I spoke briefly with Kristopher Kline, the warden at the Florence facility, who said that he was aware of the situation and that his medical staff were reviewing Spear’s case.

Erik Kessler, one of Spear’s attorneys, bemoaned Spear’s treatment and the apparent suffering this kind, gentle man has been made to endure since surrendering himself.

“We’re supposed to be free from cruel and unusual punishment,” he told me recently. “And if you take away some of these mental health medications and you don’t replace them with a suitable substitute, the internal pain is tremendous for Scott and can cause or lead to a tragedy.”

Humetewa shot down a defense request that Spear be released, but she ordered Spear’s doctor and CoreCivic’s doctor to simultaneously examine Spear and submit their conclusions to her within five to seven days.

My sources indicate that CoreCivic in Florence announces a time for prisoners to obtain their medications over an intercom system. If a prisoner doesn’t hear the announcement and doesn’t show, he is not given his meds for that day.

Reports are that Spear is withdrawn and refuses to meet with his attorneys.  So it is quite possible that Spear is missing medication that even CoreCivic agrees he should have.

Humetewa seemed most concerned that Spear was not able to meet with his attorneys regarding his appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Humetewa suggested that this was could be a violation of Spear’s Sixth Amendment’s right to assistance of counsel.

CoreCivic is notoriously skittish about bad press. For example, I have been barred from the company’s Florence facility just on the basis that I’m a “freelance journalist.”

But I would suggest that CoreCivic is its own worst enemy. CoreCivic’s secrecy and lack of transparency only brings the company more bad press. Maybe one day they’ll catch a clue.

UPDATE Oct. 11, 2024: According to a filing made yesterday by CoreCivic, Spear has been transferred to a federally-run, medium-security prison in Victorville, Calif. The notice reads, “Victorville is neither owned nor operated by CoreCivic. As a result, Defendant Spear’s Emergency Motion to Provide Necessary Medical and Psychiatric Care is moot as CoreCivic is no longer providing medical or mental health care to Defendant Spear.” More when I have it.

UPDATE Oct. 20, 2024: The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ inmate locator indicates that Spear is currently being held at Terminal Island, a low-security federal correctional institution off San Pedro, Calif. No information regarding his medical condition is known at this time.