“We are like the French troops in Russia when the snow started falling. The difference is we have winter coats and better lawyers.” –Michael Lacey, Backpage defendant, veteran newspaperman, and First Amendment stalwart A federal judge in Phoenix has rejected…
The FBI agent put a gun on me. He wore a flak jacket more appropriate to a raid on a terrorist’s bomb factory than on my suburban Phoenix home. He stood at the glass door to my office on the…
Maggie McNeill possesses an intellect as acerbic as a vat of hydrochloric acid. Watching as it devours the objects of her scorn is one of the great pleasures of reading her blog, The Honest Courtesan, which she takes to daily…
Michael Lacey has spent his entire professional life in the newspaper business. With his business partner, Jim Larkin, Lacey cofounded Phoenix New Times during the Vietnam War. The two men would go on to build Village Voice Media, a chain of weeklies…
Introduction: April 2018 — The FBI Seizes Backpage.com, and the McCains Rejoice Hours after news broke on April 6, 2018, that the FBI had seized the online listings giant Backpage.com and arrested seven current and former executives of the company,…
In an in-depth profile by Elizabeth Nolan Brown published this week on the website Reason.com, veteran newspaper publishers and former Backpage.com co-owners Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin spoke out candidly about their arrests on federal charges of money laundering, conspiracy,…
The smile on Michael Lacey’s face as he exited the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix, Arizona, at a little after noon on Friday was worth a million dollars. Literally. That morning, Lacey posted a $1 million bond, secured…
Looking as hale and hearty as a man can while clad in prisoner’s stripes, Michael Lacey inched closer to freedom on Wednesday afternoon during an appearance before a federal judge in Phoenix to determine the terms of his release. The…
Zero sex-trafficking charges. That’s the most glaring aspect of a Phoenix federal grand jury’s belatedly unsealed 93-count indictment against seven current and former owners and operators of the online listings site Backpage.com. The defendants include veteran newspapermen Michael Lacey and Jim…
UPDATE 4/9/18, 2:43 PM: The indictment has just become available, and you can read it here. Along with Lacey and Larkin, other erstwhile Backpage execs are indicted. CEO Carl Ferrer’s name is not among the indicted, though a “C.F.” is…
