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Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

reason.com

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Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#71

Post by webspinner »

brookst wrote: post #21
beaeglebeachh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how is it money laundering if it turned out the money wasn't proceeds of crime.

I spent a few minutes trying to figure that out, but Reason is incredibly slanted, they just link to some even nuttier site, and even starting with news I couldn't find specifics of the one count he was convicted on. But I'd be a little skeptical of Reason's handwave "properly reported to the government". Reported on taxes? To SEC? As part of disclosure for this trial? One way it could be money laundering without bei…

Reason is not slanted. It's a very libertarian site and a lot of people come from the left.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#72

Post by webspinner »

dmurray wrote: post #50
petertodd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't what money laundering is. Money laundering is taking illegally gotten funds and turning it into apparently legal funds. What you're describing is fraud: you took money for one purpose, and used it for something the donators didn't want it used for. Notably, it is not money laundering to obscure the source of funds when they didn't come from an illicit source. Nor is it money laundering to simply obscure th…

No, the donators gave you the money to use as you see fit. You're not betraying their trust: you're betraying your government, by funding a movement with aims inimical to them. A relevant statute in the US is the USA PATRIOT Act [0], specifically Title III, which deals with "International money laundering abatement and terrorist financing". It absolutely does restrict transmission of clean money to non-favoured polit…

The PATRIOT act is bad, and it needs to go the way of the creamitorium.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#73

Post by imperio59 »

yieldcrv wrote: post #17

> The first [trial], in 2021, was declared a mistrial after prosecutors and their witnesses couldn't stop talking about sex trafficking despite none of the defendants facing sex trafficking charges Thats always been my take on the backpage case, but I didnt feel comfortable talking about it because people are too emotionally invested in curbing sex trafficking We’d be better off just treating it as labor trafficking,…

[flagged]

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#74

Post by vuln »

stavros wrote: post #59
busterarm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of this being Arizona we're talking about and the significant contribution of illegal immigrants to the state economy.

Why is that ironic? Of course nobody will care about stopping labor trafficking if it benefits them.

> Of course nobody will care about stopping labor trafficking if it benefits them

Same with sex work it seems.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#75

Post by webspinner »

schoen wrote: post #43
echelon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> All of this stems from religion, yet our system is supposed to have a separation of church and state. Restrictions on prostitution are pretty far downstream of core church-state separation territory. The original constitutional prohibition is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" ("establishment clause") "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" ("free exercise clause"). The core ter…

You could in the 1930s, but I think we keep these laws on the books for cops. To give them something to do when they're on the job.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#76

Post by webspinner »

wmf wrote: post #4

I feel sorry for any jury who has to keep track of 86 counts. The Ross Ulbricht and SBF trials look simple by comparison.

I've seen state cases that have come close to that. They're usually mass shootings, or someone ran over 75 people with a car.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#77

Post by klausa »

webspinner wrote: post #71
brookst wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a few minutes trying to figure that out, but Reason is incredibly slanted, they just link to some even nuttier site, and even starting with news I couldn't find specifics of the one count he was convicted on. But I'd be a little skeptical of Reason's handwave "properly reported to the government". Reported on taxes? To SEC? As part of disclosure for this trial? One way it could be money laundering without bei…

Reason is not slanted. It's a very libertarian site and a lot of people come from the left.

>X is not slanted. It's a .

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#78

Post by fader »

imperio59 wrote: post #73
yieldcrv wrote: post #17

> The first [trial], in 2021, was declared a mistrial after prosecutors and their witnesses couldn't stop talking about sex trafficking despite none of the defendants facing sex trafficking charges Thats always been my take on the backpage case, but I didnt feel comfortable talking about it because people are too emotionally invested in curbing sex trafficking We’d be better off just treating it as labor trafficking,…

[flagged]

You just proved the parent's point

> none of the defendants facing sex trafficking charges

responded to immediately with

> This sounds like an apology for sex trafficking

It's another formulation of "why keep secrets if you have nothing to hide", but followed with "and why do you support sex trafficking" for extra emotional impact (and libel).

If you really wanted to stop sex trafficking, you'd oppose FOSTA/SESTA[0]. Backpage was protective of sex workers!

But why let the facts get in the way of a good moral outrage?

[0]: https://decriminalizesex.work/advocacy/sesta-fosta/what-is-s...

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#79

Post by gnicholas »

petertodd wrote: post #30
gnicholas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a very high bar for guilt in criminal trials. This is because we would rather have many guilty people go free than send an innocent person to prison (there are still mistakes, of course). Given this situation, it wouldn’t make sense to assume anyone who is not convicted on even one count is actually innocent.

> We have a very high bar for guilt in criminal trials. If we do, then my suggestion should be easy to implement and will only impact a tiny minority of cases. Of course, in this case it's pretty clear that the prosecution made up a bunch of charges that they knew they'd lose on to try to drain the resources of the people they were charging, as well as punish them pre-emptively. The prosecution also clearly broke the…

Sounds like a false dichotomy between "cases that will always result in guilty verdicts" and "cases that the prosecution knew they'd lose but brought anyway to drain resources". You don't seem to recognize that there are many, many cases that could go either way, based on how judges rule about evidentiary matters, what the composition of the jury is, etc.

As someone who was a lawyer for years, and who has served on a jury, I have seen the ways that things can evolve in unexpected ways. IMO the vast majority of cases could go either way, depending on how rulings and jury composition turn out. Any system that doles out taxpayer money whenever the prosecution doesn't run the table is utterly naive. It would result in less prosecution, more criminals going free, and more victimization by people we didn't lock up.

Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts

#80

Post by ahazred8ta »

nailer wrote: post #46

America is bizarre. Technically prostitution is illegal in my state, Googling “new York city escort” shows thousands of results.

Barney Miller had an episode where a gal was delivering I♥NY buttons to hotel rooms for $75 per button.
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