In an order filed Thursday in federal court in Phoenix, U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa questioned whether veteran journalists and ex-Backpage owners Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin should be retried separately from their four co-defendants in the case. Humetewa’s…
In the two-week runup to Super Bowl LVII, more than 100 law enforcement officers from nearly 20 local, state and federal law agencies — including the FBI and DHS — participated in a massive operation in Metro Phoenix ostensibly targeting…
How did Phoenix’s paper of record, the Arizona Republic, get so many things wrong about the Super Bowl/sex trafficking panic in its recent reporting on the topic? In the days leading up to Super Bowl LVII, the paper casually conflated…
Anticipating a favorable ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on a similar Mississippi statute, Republicans in Arizona’s state Senate recently passed a bill along party lines that would outlaw most abortions after 15 weeks, with no exception made for victims…
In an eight-page order issued Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa dismissed concerns by the defendants in the Lacey/Larkin case that her connections to the late Sen. John McCain and the McCain Institute might trigger her recusal due to…
Update, Thursday, 9/9/2021: At the beginning of trial this morning, codefendant Andrew Padilla reported to the judge that he was not feeling well. In an abundance of caution, Judge Brnovich ordered that he have a rapid Covid test. Court was…
MAJOR POINTS Michael Lacey, Jim Larkin and four codefendants currently face 100 counts including the following: facilitating misdemeanor state prostitution offenses in violation of the U.S. Travel Act; money laundering; conspiracy to commit money laundering; and conspiracy to facilitate misdemeanor…
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…
Unless you’ve been languishing in a vegetative state for the past week, you’ve likely seen Cindy McCain pimping her new memoir, Stronger: Courage, Hope and Humor in My Life with John McCain, in interviews with such outlets as The Washington…
Before they were newspapermen, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin were young iconoclasts, fed up with the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration and the Kent State Massacre. But as they both explain in recent interviews for the paper they founded 50…
