The U.S. Department of Justice has wasted four years and untold millions of tax dollars on the wrongful prosecution of award-winning journalists and former Backpage owners Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin. Given the opportunity, the DOJ may waste more. Because…
Forget smoking guns. In an appellate brief filed recently at the Ninth Circuit, defense attorneys in the Lacey/Larkin case offer a series of flaming bazookas, detailing the prosecution’s unabashed intent to force the defense to move for a mistrial (and…
Defense attorneys in the Lacey/Larkin case faced a high bar during Friday’s oral arguments in Phoenix’s federal court on their motion for dismissal for double jeopardy, filed in the wake of a mistrial declared on Sep. 14 by Judge Susan…
Undeterred by the mistrial they caused Sept. 14, federal prosecutors are revisiting the deceitful tactics that interrupted their first stab at falsely convicting veteran newspapermen Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin for their former ownership of the classified-listings giant, Backpage.com. In…
Defense attorneys in the Lacey/Larkin trial fought like feral bobcats on Friday to block inflammatory testimony from a woman trafficked as a teen and advertised in adult ads posted by herself and pimps to the now-defunct classified-listings site, Backpage.com. Federal…
Update 9/4/2021: As I Tweeted yesterday after court, the defense unanimously moved for mistrial after federal prosecutor Reggie Jones gave an inflammatory and prejudicial opening statement to the jury. Jones essentially accused the defendants of crimes committed by others, with…
In hindsight, I should not be surprised by “reporter” Richard Ruelas’ shameful steaming pile of a hit piece in the Arizona Republic yesterday. After all, the first thing the Republic lifer did when veteran newspapermen Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin…
Update Aug. 17, 2021: On the same day as Judge Brnovich’s order below, Bruce Feder, attorney for one of Lacey and Larkin’s co-defendants, Scott Spear, entered a “response and opposition to court order accelerating trial.” Feder explains on the record…
The mendacity of the federal government’s prosecution of award-winning journalists Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin knows no bounds. With less than a month before Lacey and Larkin’s Aug. 23 trial on allegations that they facilitated prostitution due to their former…
During a June 7 status conference in Phoenix’s federal court in the Lacey/Larkin case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Rapp, the lead attorney for the government, made an assertion nearly as absurd as the poofy, Liberace-style hairdo that he regularly sports….
