This is the Kator Daily Podcast for Friday, August 4th, 2023.

I'm Caleb Brough.

With a week to go before a federal trial accusing the founders and operators of Backpage.com of facilitating prostitution.

One of the founders of the website at issue, James Larkin, has apparently taken his own life.

Backpage.com has been in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors for several years.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown at reason has been following the long fight between Backpage.com and

the feds we spoke today.

We will get to the tragic news about James Larkin,

but Mr Larkin and Michael Lacy were awaiting trial and as far as you know the case is moving forward

because there are multiple defendants here but what were the what are these men charged with?

They are charged with conspiring to facilitate prostitution in violation of the Federal

Tribal Act. The Tribal Act basically says you can't use

interstate commerce to do anything that violates a number of federal or state laws

and since prostitution is illegal in most places

albeit just you know a misdemeanor you know conspiring to use interstate commerce in

this case the internet in order to facilitate

prostitution would be a violation of the Federal Travel Act.

Backpage.com was the conduit through which these men were taking these actions alleged

by the federal government. What was Backpage.com? Backpage.com was an online classified ads platform much like

Craigslist which you know I think maybe is the better known version of this.

It provided a platform where people could post ads

in a variety of categories for services or goods.

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