The controversial federal judge who presided over the trial of former Backpage.com owners Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin — which already ended in one mistrial before being rescheduled for next year — has decided to recuse herself.
The Arizona federal judge who declared a mistrial last month in the Backpage.com case — after prosecutors repeatedly ignored her instructions not to bring up unrelated and inflammatory “child sex trafficking” insinuations in order to prejudice the jury — has ordered a new trial to begin in February 2022.
The first full week of the trial of former Backpage.com owners Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin has wrapped up in Phoenix with the first day of testimony by federal government witnesses.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected yesterday a petition by the defense of the former owners of Backpage.com that they order a recusal of Judge Susan Brnovich over a conflict of interest concerning her husband, Arizona Attorney General and anti-sex work activist Mark Brnovich.
In a procedural win for the former owners of adult classifieds website Backpage.com, a two-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered federal prosecutors to address the defense’s request for the judge overseeing the criminal trial to remove herself from it.
Former Backpage owners Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin filed a petition with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday seeking an order to recuse the Phoenix federal judge presiding over their criminal trial.
Last Friday, the Phoenix federal judge presiding over the criminal trial against the former owners of Backpage.com issued a 14-page ruling that detailed her refusal to recuse herself from the case, following a motion by the defendants that revealed her husband’s explicit activism against them as part of a crusade alleging “human trafficking.”
