Backpage manager says he's not certain 'every single' escort ad on site was for prostitution

Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of attorney Bruce Feder.

The man who managed the website Backpage.com said during cross-examination that he wasn't certain that every ad in the female escort section of the website was for prostitution.

Carl Ferrer, the man who conceived of the classified advertising website, said there were indications that women on the site were looking to exchange sex for money. But, he said, he “can’t say every single one.”

Ferrer pleaded guilty in March 2018 on behalf of himself and the website, admitting Backpage was complicit in allowing prostitution activities.

He was the government’s first witness in the trial against Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey, who was also the longtime editor of the alternative weekly, Phoenix New Times. Prosecutors asked him questions on the stand for nearly two weeks before the defense got its chance for cross-examination.

Lacey, along with four other Backpage executives and employees, are charged with using the site to facilitate prostitution. Lacey and two executives also are charged with money laundering.

Ferrer also said that the website had no way of knowing whether a person posting on Backpage was using actual photos of themselves. “It’s a user-generated content site,” he said.

The federal indictment against Lacey and the other Backpage executives and employees charges that certain specific ads were used for prostitution.

Prosecutors contend that Backpage employees and executives were not merely hosting the ads, but knowingly curating a prostitution marketplace. Ferrer, in his testimony, said the website worked to edit words and images in ads to create a "veneer" that the ads were truly for companionship.

Lacey and the other defendants have asserted that they aren't liable for ads written by others. They have aimed to introduce to the federal jury in downtown Phoenix a slew of emails lauding the site's work in helping law enforcement investigations, particularly into child sex trafficking.

In afternoon testimony, Ferrer was shown emails sent from a Backpage address used to communicate with law enforcement and detectives in Maryland. The company sent to detectives ads on other websites that used the same phone number as the one they were investigating on Backpage.

“This does help,” a detective wrote back.

Ferrer, though, said that he wouldn’t call the email helpful. He said it was Backpage’s attempt to misdirect and mislead law enforcement. “It was a public relations stunt,” he said.

Ferrer had his first full day of cross-examination Tuesday. The defense started a brief cross in the final 10 minutes of court Friday.

Defense questions claims about prostitution ads

In his direct testimony, which started Sept. 12, Ferrer laid out how Backpage grew from a small classified advertising site that aimed to rival Craigslist and how it strategically courted prostitutes, pimps and their customers to generate millions of dollars in revenue.

On Tuesday, Bruce Feder, an attorney for former Backpage executive Scott Spear, asked Ferrer about what indications he had that the ads in the female escort section were really for prostitution.

Ferrer said that among the indicators was the way women dressed in photos in the ad and the use of code words that suggested sex. Ferrer also cited as an indicator links to a website called The Erotic Review, where purported customers of the women would rate their services.

Feder also asked Ferrer about his testimony that the links to The Erotic Review, which Backpage agreed to post on its website, were the “secret sauce” that allowed the website to dominate the field.

Feder asked whether the website was really a secret, pointing to magazine articles about the site.

Ferrer said the secret was the relationship between the two websites, something not disclosed to law enforcement.

“They never asked about it,” he said, “and we never disclosed it.”

In previous testimony, under questioning from prosecutors, Ferrer described creating a strategic alliance with The Erotic Review.

Reviews on The Erotic Review would contain a link to that escort’s ad on Backpage. And ads on Backpage would take potential customers to that escort’s reviews on The Erotic Review.

By July 2007, the system was generating 2 million visits per month to Backpage, Ferrer said on the witness stand.

Ferrer said law enforcement had opened some 20,000 prostitution investigations stemming from the female escort section from 2004 to 2018, suggesting such activity was common on the site.

Feder asked Ferrer whether he considered 20,000 a large number, in relation to the millions of ads posted. Ferrer disagreed the number was small. “I think it’s a lot of subpoenas,” he said.

A deal to avoid prison time?

Feder also asked Ferrer about the plea deal he struck with prosecutors, resulting in his days of testimony against his former employers and co-workers.

Ferrer said that he and other Backpage employees had a meeting with federal prosecutors in February 2018. After that meeting, he said, “I came to the conclusion maybe the best thing for me to do is to shut down the site.”

Ferrer said he told others at Backpage that, “I couldn’t do this anymore.” He signed a plea deal in April 2018.

Feder asked whether Ferrer hoped to entirely escape jail with his testimony. Ferrer said he was “hopeful, correct. But there are no promises.”

Feder asked him whether prosecutors would make that suggestion to his sentencing judge even if his testimony about Backpage’s operations were false.

Ferrer said that was not the case.

“If I don’t tell the truth,” he said, “I would not get that benefit.”

Feder attempted to get Ferrer to say he lied in a previous federal trial during which Backpage ads were used as evidence. The nature of the trials was not told to the jury.

Ferrer, in a 2010 trial in Florida, testified that Backpage “forbid any posting that is a sex act for money exchange.”

Asked whether that was true, Ferrer said it was an accurate description of the site’s rules.

“It’s what we had in the posting rules,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening on the site.”

Reach Ruelas at 602-444-8473 or richard.ruelas@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @ruelaswritings or on Threads at richardruelas.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Backpage manager, a key government witness, is cross examined at trial