Following up on backpage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpa...al_prosecution
Backpage court case was declared a mistrial in sept. 2021.
a hearing took place in early october 2021, apparently to set a date for a new court case which was set for february 2022.
Judge in that case recused herself for unknown reasons in late october 2021. a 4th judge took over the case. defendants tried to dismiss the case for good. new judge refused.
what's going on in the new 2022 trial is unknown. have not found anything new on that.
best part is... FOSTA/SESTA wasn't used to charge backpage officers.
just the money laundering statues, feds were going with that.
theres a report by GAO on FOSTA/SESTA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpage#GAO_report
In June 2021, the U.S. Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) released a report, stating that SESTA/FOSTA had only been used once by the DOJ since it was passed in 2018. Both SESTA/FOSTA and the takedown of Backpage using other statutes had caused the adult online ad market to fragment and scatter to sites hosted in other countries.[205][206]
The GAO report concludes that the seizure of Backpage has had an adverse effect on federal law enforcement's ability to investigate sex trafficking cases. It reads:
. . . gathering evidence to bring cases against users of online platforms has also become more difficult. According to a 2019 FBI document, the FBI's ability to identify and locate sex trafficking victims and perpetrators was significantly decreased following the takedown of backpage.com. According to FBI officials, this is largely because law enforcement was familiar with backpage.com, and backpage.com was generally responsive to legal requests for information. In contrast, officials said, law enforcement may be less familiar with platforms located overseas. Further, obtaining evidence from entities overseas may be more cumbersome and time-intensive, as those who control such platforms may not voluntarily respond to legal process, and mutual legal assistance requests may take months, if not years, according to DOJ officials. Despite these investigative challenges, DOJ officials said they are committed to holding accountable those who control online platforms that promote sex trafficking.
it goes to show how stupid these guys were in handling this.
they were better off with backpage up online. catching bad apples was easier.