LOS ANGELES—For the fifth time, the criminal trial of Backpage.com founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin has seen a delay. The two men are now set to face trial in April of next year in Arizona’s U.S. District Court, almost exactly three years since federal agents seized and shut down Backpage, arresting the two founders and several other executives, on numerous charges of money laundering and facilitating prostitution.
Lacey will be 72 years old, and Larkin 71, when they finally go before a jury — providing that the case is not delayed for a sixth time.
It was Lacey and Larkin who sought the new delay, however, according to a report on the site Frontpage Confidential, which is owned by Lacey and Larkin. The report by Frontpage editor Stephen Lemons states that the defendants requested the new “continuance” due to “continued uncertainty over the COVID crisis,” as well as “a medical leave scheduled by one defense attorney.”
They had previously requested, and received, a delay in the trial from August of 2020 to January of 2021, when defense lawyers said that conditions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic “made it nigh impossible for them to adequately prepare for a complex trial estimated to last 12 weeks, with millions of documents in discovery and more than 100 witnesses for the prosecution.”
In her order granting the latest delay, federal Judge Susan Brnovich simply said that there was “good cause” to grant the new trial date of April 12, 2021, but offered no further explanation. She also delayed a pretrial hearing previously set for December 14. The new date for the pre-trial appearance is now March 22, 2021.
Though Brnovich appears to have been amenable to Lacey and Larkin’s requests for repeated delays, sometimes over the objections of federal prosecutors at least, the two defendants are nonetheless fighting in court to force her to step down.
Brnovich is married to Mark Brnovich, Arizona’s state attorney general. Lacey and Larkin contend that because he has publicly spoken out against Backpage, calling the classified ad site a “forum” for sex trafficking, that his wife would be inherently biased against them.
Federal prosecutors are fighting the recusal demand, stating that “it is anachronistic to suggest that a federal judge with 17 years of judicial experience is unable to preside impartially because of her husband's views.”
