ST. LOUIS – Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley recently filed motions in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri seeking criminal contempt sanctions against Backpage.com LLC, a company that in April pleaded guilty in a Texas state court to human trafficking and to conspiracy to commit money laundering in federal court in Arizona.
In Hawley's July 16 notice, he states that criminal and civil sanctions are warranted because Backpage's recent criminal plea agreements reveal that its "witch hunt" lawsuit filed against Hawley was based on false statements and was calculated to mislead the court, as well as impeded a lawful investigation.
Hawley claims that his investigation into Backpage was triggered after "explosive public evidence" came to light that the company was heavily engaged in illegal human trafficking. After the investigation was launched, Backpage filed suit against Hawley in which it "presented itself as an innocent target of a witch hunt," the filing said.
"Backpage assured this court that it was not responsible for the content of any ads for illegal human trafficking on its website," the petition states. "Backpage assured this court that it never knowingly permitted illegal ads to remain on its website because it deleted all ads for illegal human trafficking that came to its attention. Backpage assured this court that it worked closely with law enforcement officials to investigate individuals who misused its website. And Backpage assured this court that all its conduct was immune under the federal Communications Decency Act (CDA), which protects providers of internet forums from liability when they have no involvement in creating, 'in whole or in part,' unlawful content that third parties post to its website."
The petition states that until the federal government seized the website in April, 99 percent of Backpage's revenue came from ads for commercial sex, including illegal human trafficking of underage girls, and it obtained more than $3 million per week.
Further, it states that Backpage was involved in 73 percent of all child trafficking reports that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received from the general public.
Hawley states that the most appropriate form of sanction is criminal contempt because Backpage has already pleaded guilty to human trafficking and money laundering and therefore collecting a monetary award "may prove difficult or impossible."
He further states that the court should also impose other monetary sanctions.