By Richard Ruelas | The Republic
An attorney for an online classified ad portal said Friday a raid at the website’s Texas headquarters and charges that its owners were acting as pimps amounted to an election-year stunt that the company would fight.
Authorities arrested the CEO of Backpage.com on Thursday and issued arrest warrants for the two Phoenix men who own controlling shares of the business, alleging that the company was enabling prostitution, sometimes involving minors, through ads placed on the website.
The warrant for the arrest of Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, who built a nationwide media empire after starting the Phoenix weekly newspaper New Times, says the men were running a virtual house of prostitution through the ads posted on Backpage.