LOS ANGELES—The founders of the now-shuttered classified ad site Backpage.com, who were indicted in 2018 on numerous counts of money laundering and facilitating prostitution, are set to face trial on those counts in January, in an Arizona federal court. But this week, lawyers for Michael Lacey and James Larkin say they have learned about comments by the husband of their trial judge that indicate bias against them.
In court documents filed this week, Lacey and Larkin demand that federal Judge Susan Brnovich recuse herself from their case, due to the comments made by her husband, who is also Arizona’s attorney general, according to a report by The Arizona Republic.
Though Lacey, 70, and Larkin, 69, were not charged with “sex trafficking,” federal authorities seized Backpage and shut down the site, in part due to allegations that sex trafficking activities took place on the site — which was known as an online haven for sex workers to advertise their services.
In the court documents, lawyers cite a 2018 pamphlet entitled “Human Trafficking: Arizona’s Not Buying It,” published by the state attorney general’s office, which specifically names Backpage as a forum for sex trafficking. In the pamphlet, AG Mark Brnovich — the judge’s husband — describes sex trafficking as “more than just a crime, it is a profound tragedy for all of those who fall victim.” The court filing also cites what it says are public comments by Mark Brnovich in which he has explicitly stated that “Backpage.com facilitated illegal prostitution — the issue at the core of this case,” according to the document.
“He also has publicly claimed Backpage.com facilitated sex trafficking and called on Congress to change federal law so he himself would not be barred from prosecuting Backpage.com and/or defendants,” the lawyers for Lacey and Larkin state. “He has publicly aligned himself with others who have publicly made similar claims.”
Though the pamphlet was published in 2018, the court document says that the Lacey-Larkin legal team only recently became aware of its existence. They say that they are not asking the judge to recuse herself simply because she is married to the attorney general, but because “he has inserted himself into the mix in this case.”
Susan Brnovich, 52, is a former Maricopa County Superior Court judge who was named to the federal bench by Donald Trump in 2018. She has been married to Mark Bronovich, 53, for 23 years. He was elected Arizona’s attorney general in 2014, and re-elected in 2018.
Lacey and Larkin are founders of Arizona’s Phoenix New Times weekly newspaper, which they went on to expand into a nationwide chain of muckraking “alternative weekly” papers. As AVN has reported, they claim that the federal prosecution is retaliation against them for their journalistic activities with The New Times.
Lacey has accused the family of late Arizona Senator John McCain of trying to “even a score,” because their newspaper exposed McCain’s alleged involvement with the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s.
Photos by Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Sacramento County Sheriff's Office
