SACRAMENTO, Calif. — New lawsuits were filed Jan. 25 in four states on behalf of women who say they were victimized as teenagers when they were sold for sex on an international website.
The suits filed in Alabama, California, Texas and Washington are believed to be the first to individually name the operators of Backpage.com, Seattle attorney Jason Amala said in an email.
Chief Executive Officer Carl Ferrer and purported owners Michael Lacey and James Larkin are among those being sued, along with other affiliated individuals and holding companies.
The complaints say the three men are liable because they knew they were profiting from illegal sex trafficking. Backpage’s general counsel, Liz McDougall, declined comment.
The men appeared in a California courtroom on Jan. 24 to contest similar criminal charges that they say are barred by federal law and free speech protections.
Amala has a separate lawsuit against the company awaiting trial after it survived a legal challenge that reached the Washington state Supreme Court.
But the U.S. Supreme Court this month left in place a different lower-court ruling that said Backpage’s ads are protected by federal law because the site is publishing advertisements created by clients.
The four new lawsuits are the first to be filed since Backpage shuttered its adult services section earlier this month as a U.S. Senate subcommittee issued a report alleging that the site’s operators were actively editing ads, not merely publishing them.
The five women allege they were advertised on Backpage.com between 2013 and late 2015.
The two women who filed the Washington lawsuit say they were between 14 and 16 years old when they were sold for sex in the Seattle area.
The California suit is on behalf of a teenager who says she was 15 when she was advertised in Riverside County in August 2015.
The Texas suit was filed because that is where Backpage was headquartered at the time another teenager says she was trafficked in Hawaii in 2015.
The Alabama woman says she was 17 when her advertisements ran in Houston County, Alabama, in 2013.
(DON THOMPSON)
PORTLAND, Ore. — Tossing tent poles, blankets and a duffel bag into a shopping cart and three wagons, Will Taylor spent a summer morning helping friends tear down what had been their home and that of about a dozen others.
FALMOUTH, MA – The police in Falmouth have identified the victim in an accident involving a car plunging into the ocean on February 20, NBC10 Boston reported.
LONDON - "I am excited to visit this place and I can't wait for it to be officially opened," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday in his greeting at an event held by the Embassy of Greece in London to mark the creation of the "Seferis Office" and the "Roderick Beaton Reading Room".
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden offered Tuesday to testify publicly before Congress, striking a defiant note in response to a subpoena from Republicans and setting up a potential high-stakes face-off even as a separate special counsel probe unfolds and his father, President Joe Biden, campaigns for reelection.
NEW YORK – The big turnout was accompanied by a festive mood, and a note of optimism was struck by the participation of the younger generation in the 32nd philanthropic meal of the Greek American Homeowners Association that took place at its headquarters in Astoria on Thanksgiving Day.
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the powerful Koch network, formally endorsed Nikki Haley's presidential campaign on Tuesday, promising to commit its nationwide army of activists — and virtually unlimited funds — to helping Haley defeat former President Donald Trump in the GOP primary contest.
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Hungary's capital in December, his second trip to Budapest this year at a time when both countries remain the only NATO members not to have ratified Sweden's accession into the trans-Atlantic military alliance.
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