Defense lawyers say 1st Amendment protected ads on Backpage

PHOENIX (AP) — Lawyers defending the founders of the classified site Backpage.com against allegations they knowingly ran ads for prostitution told jurors Wednesday that the adult service ads published by their clients were controversial but ultimately protected by the First Amendment.

Attorneys for Michael Lacey and James Larkin said in opening statements at their trial that the site ran legally allowable ads for escort services, but didn’t publish ads for sex. They say the site beefed up its staff and methods for spotting illegal ads, helped authorities in investigating sexual trafficking cases and earned compliments from law enforcement for their assistance.

“Backpage was doing everything they could to help the police,” said Paul Cambria, one of the attorneys representing Lacey.

Last week, a prosecutor told jurors that the majority of the site’s revenue came from prostitution ads but the founders and operators of Backpage tried to conceal it. The prosecutor said the site hired content moderators whose job was not to remove prostitution ads but to edit them so they weren’t so blatant. The prosecutor also said the website developed a partnership with a website where customers wrote reviews of prostitutes, which drove significant traffic to Backpage.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich denied a request for a mistrial made by defense lawyers, who argued a prosecutor’s repeated references to sex trafficking during opening statements were inflammatory.

While prosecutors say the site published many ads that depicted children who were victims of sex trafficking, no one in the federal case in Arizona is charged with sex trafficking or child sex trafficking.

In all, six former Backpage operators have pleaded not guilty to charges of facilitating prostitution. Of...