Backpage.Com Indictment Details Sex Trafficking, Money Laundering

PHOENIX, AZ – A 93-count indictment unsealed in federal court in Phoenix on Monday charges notorious classified website Backpage.com of making hundreds of millions of dollars while facilitating prostitution and the sex trafficking of children. The indictment was unsealed after the seven people charged in the indictment – including founders Michael Lacey and James Larking – appeared in court.

"For far too long, Backpage.com existed as the dominant marketplace for illicit commercial sex, a place where sex traffickers frequently advertised children and adults alike," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. "But this illegality stops right now."

On Friday, visitors to the website were greeted with an announcement that Backpage.com had been seized by the federal government.

"Backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division," the announcement read. (Get Phoenix Patch's daily newsletter and real-time news alerts. Or, find your local Patch here and subscribe).

That same day, federal agents raided Lacey's home in Sedona.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has said that nearly three-quarters of the reports it receives about child sex-trafficking start with ads on Backpage.com.

Officials with the site have publicly claimed to be fighting sex trafficking, but internal documents make it clear the opposite is true, according to the indictment.

"The Backpage defendants have admitted — in internal company documents and during private meetings – that they know the overwhelming majority of the website's ads involve prostitution," the indictment states.

It also quotes co-founder Lacey bragging in an internal document of the site's contributions to the prostitution industry.

"Backpage is part of the solution," the indictment quotes him as saying. "For the first time, the oldest profession in the world has transparency, record keeping and safeguards."

While many in the sex worker industry have made that argument, the indictment paints a picture of a much darker side.

The indictment quotes an email written to Backpage from a woman "stating that her underage daughter had been kidnapped, drugged, and was being advertised as a prostitute against her will."

She asked that the ad be taken down adding: "This is a drugged and held against her will child who had photos taken under threat and duress."

A worker asked the site's operations manager what to do and was told there was no need to take it down.

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Graphic via Department of Justice.