California attorney general Kamala Harris said on Friday she was pursuing new pimping charges against the operators of Backpage.com – a website which advertises escort services and which she said operated “a hotbed of illicit and exploitative activity”.
The new charges came two weeks after a judge threw out an earlier case.
Harris, an incoming US senator, said she had charged Backpage executives Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacey and James Larkin with 13 counts of pimping and conspiracy to commit pimping. They also are charged with 26 counts of money laundering.
Harris said the new charges were based on new evidence. A Sacramento County judge threw out pimping charges against the men on 9 December, citing federal free-speech laws.
In the latest case, filed in Sacramento County superior court, Harris claims Backpage illegally funnelled money through multiple companies and created various websites to get around banks that refused to process transactions.
She also alleged that the company used photos of women from Backpage on other sites without their permission in order to increase revenue and knowingly profited from the proceeds of prostitution.
“By creating an online brothel – a hotbed of illicit and exploitative activity – Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacey, and James Larkin preyed on vulnerable victims, including children, and profited from their exploitation,” Harris said in a statement.
Attorneys for the men did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Judge Michael Bowman sided with lawyers for the trio and the company in his ruling earlier this month, saying the website was engaged in free speech allowed under the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects companies from content posted by third parties.
In the earlier case, Ferrer, 55, Backpage’s chief executive, was charged with pimping a minor, pimping and conspiracy to commit pimping. Lacey, 68, and Larkin, 67, both from Arizona, were charged with conspiracy to commit pimping.
Lacey and Larkin, the website’s former owners, used to own alternative newspapers around the country, including the Village Voice in New York City.
Harris has alleged that more than 90% of Backpage’s revenue – millions of dollars each month – comes from adult escort ads that use coded language and nearly nude photos to offer sex for money.
She is doubling down on pimping charges in her final days before resigning to take her seat in the US Senate.
The Democrat was among 47 state attorneys general who asked Congress in 2013 to help change a provision of the Communications Decency Act that they acknowledged protected Backpage from prosecution.
