1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Thomas H. Bienert, Jr. (CA State Bar No. 135311, admitted pro hac vice) 

Whitney Z. Bernstein (CA State Bar No. 304917, admitted pro hac vice) 

BIENERT | KATZMAN PC 

903 Calle Amanecer, Suite 350 

San Clemente, California 92673 

Telephone: (949) 369-3700 

Facsimile: (949) 369-3701 

Email: tbienert@bienertkatzman.com 

wbernstein@bienertkatzman.com 

Counsel for James Larkin 

Paul J. Cambria, Jr. (NY State Bar No. 1430909, admitted pro hac vice)

Erin McCampbell (NY State Bar No. 4480166, admitted pro hac vice) 

LIPSITZ GREEN SCIME CAMBRIA LLP 

42 Delaware Avenue, Suite 120 

Buffalo, New York 14202 

Telephone: (716) 849-1333 

Facsimile: (716) 855-1580 

Email: pcambria@lglaw.com 

 emccampbell@lglaw.com 

Counsel for Michael Lacey

Additional counsel listed on next two pages 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

United States of America, 

 Plaintiff. 

 v. 

Michael Lacey, et al., 

 Defendants. 

No. 18-CR-00422-PHX-SMB 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT

Hon. Susan M. Brnovich 

Date: June 24, 2019 

Time: 11:00 a.m. 

 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 1 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

ii 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

James C. Grant (Wash. Bar No. 14358; admitted pro hac vice) 

DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP 

1201 Third Ave, Suite 2200 

Seattle, Washington 98101 

Telephone: (206) 757-8096 

Facsimile: (206) 757-7096 

Email: jimgrant@dwt.com 

Counsel for Michael Lacey and James Larkin 

Bruce Feder (AZ Bar No. 004832) 

FEDER LAW OFFICE, P.A. 

2930 E. Camelback Road, Suite 160 

Phoenix, Arizona 85016 

Telephone: (602) 257-0135 

Email: bf@federlawpa.com 

Counsel for Scott Spear 

Gary S. Lincenberg (CA State Bar No. 123058, admitted pro hac vice) 

Ariel A. Neuman (CA State Bar No. 241594, admitted pro hac vice) 

Gopi K. Panchapakesan (CA State Bar No. 279586, admitted pro hac vice) 

BIRD, MARELLA, BOXER, WOLPERT, NESSIM, 

DROOKS, LINCENBERG & RHOW, P.C. 

1875 Century Park East, 23rd Floor 

Los Angeles, California 90067-2561 

Telephone: (310) 201-2100 

Facsimile: (310) 201-2110 

Email: glincenberg@birdmarella.com 

 aneuman@birdmarella.com 

 gpanchapakesan@birdmarella.com 

Counsel for John Brunst 

David Eisenberg (AZ Bar No. 017218) 

DAVID EISENBERG PLC 

3550 N. Central Ave., Ste. 1155 

Phoenix, Arizona 85012 

Telephone: (602) 237-5076 

Facsimile: (602) 314-6273 

Email: david@deisenbergplc.com 

Counsel for Andrew Padilla 

Additional counsel listed on next page 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 2 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

iii 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

Joy Malby Bertrand (AZ Bar No. 024181) 

JOY BERTRAND ESQ LLC 

P.O. Box 2734 

Scottsdale, Arizona 85252 

Telephone: (602)374-5321 

Facsimile: (480)361-4694 

Email: joy.bertrand@gmail.com 

Counsel for Joye Vaught

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 3 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

1 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

I. INTRODUCTION 

 At the April 23, 2019 status conference, the Court directed the parties to submit status reports 

addressing any developments with respect to the outstanding discovery issues raised in Defendants’ 

last status report. There has been little or no change in the government’s discovery production since 

then.1

 Although Defendants have been seeking access to the Backpage.com computer systems and 

their data since May 2018 (see Exhibit A, Michael Piccarreta’s May 1, 2018 Letter to AUSAs Lanza 

and Rapp), the government’s first significant production of that data did not occur until March 2019. 

The government appears to have produced millions of emails and other documents, plus database 

tables with some information relating to tens of millions of ad records and millions of images from 

those ads—not in the usable Relativity format in which the government has made its prior 

disclosures, but in raw or native formats that are not accessible to or useable by Defendants at 

present. The government also acknowledges in its status report that it has not yet produced 

Backpage’s payment processing data and says it expects to produce the data to Defendants in midJuly. This outstanding evidence includes the data and systems that received and tracked online 

payments for Backpage.com and is pertinent to the government’s numerous money laundering 

charges. The government proposes to produce this data (likely tens of millions of records) by 

providing images of disks from servers, with the data in raw or native formats, not in a Relativity 

format. In a raw or native format, the data will not be accessible to or useable by Defendants. 

Moreover, if the payment data is no longer correlated to the ads to which the payments relate, which 

Defendants expect, the data likely will be meaningless. In short, while the government repeatedly 

claims it provided 90% of pertinent records a year ago, in fact the government has just recently 

produced millions of emails and documents, just recently produced tens of millions of records 

relating to ads, and has yet to produce tens of millions of payment records—and most of that data 

 

1 At 5:00 p.m. Friday evening, the government filed its status report, which included several exhibits 

providing details about Backpage.com’s computer systems that the government had never previously 

disclosed to Defendants. Because of the timing of the government’s disclosure of this new 

information, Defendants are unable to meaningfully address this here, but will provide a 

supplemental status report addressing this new information in advance of the June 24, 2019 hearing. 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 4 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

2 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

is in a format that is not usable to Defendants (primarily because the government destroyed the 

computer systems needed to meaningfully access the data). 

 With respect to the disclosure of Jencks Act materials, the government identified the 

cooperation agreement of one of its cooperating witnesses, but otherwise produced no Jencks Act 

materials, saying it has produced all Jencks Act materials except for those pertaining to cooperating 

witness Carl Ferrer, which it represents it will produce later this month. The upcoming disclosures 

relating to Ferrer are crucial to the defense investigation, identification of witnesses and evidence, 

and trial preparation. 

 Finally, more than a month after the government promised to identify its proposed exhibits 

by Bates number among the nearly eleven million pages of discovery produced thus far, just three 

days ago it sent Defendants a new exhibit list. This incomplete list identifies some of the exhibits by 

Bates numbers and fails to identify others, but also lists documents the government has never produced

to Defendants. This list also uses different exhibit numbers than the previous exhibit list, so the lists 

no longer correlate. 

 In addition to the discovery inadequacies, two recent developments in this case necessitate a 

suspension of the current scheduling order. First, on May 2, 2019, this Court relieved prior counsel 

for Defendants Padilla and Vaught (see Doc. No. 559), appointing new counsel for those defendants 

on May 3, 2019 (see Doc. Nos. 565, 566). New counsel, appointed more than a year after this complex 

case began, needs additional time to get up to speed on the case, to familiarize themselves with the 

fifteen year history the government claims is pertinent to the charges, and to obtain the requisite 

infrastructure and databases to begin reviewing the nearly eleven million pages of discovery the 

government produced before March 2019, as well as the millions of emails and other documents the 

government produced in March 2019 and the millions of records it proposes to produce in July 2019. 

Consequently, a motion to continue the trial date is forthcoming. Additionally, on April 22, 2019, 

Defendants filed a motion to dismiss the Indictment. See Doc. Nos. 539, 561. On May 28, 2019, 

amicus briefs were filed in support of the motion to dismiss by the DKT Liberty Project, Cato 

Institute, and Reason Foundation and by the Arizona ACLU. See Doc. Nos. 624, 625. The motion 

to dismiss the indictment likely will not be fully briefed before end of June. The Court’s ruling on 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 5 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

3 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

the motion likely will significantly inform the trajectory of the case and the parties’ strategies (and 

thus discovery needs) going forward. 

Finally, as the Court is aware, Defendants Larkin, Lacey, Brunst, and Spear challenged the 

government’s sweeping seizures of their assets in the Central District of California. That challenge 

now is before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the appeal is fully briefed and set for 

expedited oral argument on July 9, 2019. See United States v. James Larkin et al., Case No. 18-56455. 

Much like this Court’s ruling on the Motion to Dismiss, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling will significantly 

impact the case, both because it may address fundamental First Amendment issues going to the heart 

of the government’s charges and also because it will inform the ability of Larkin, Lacey, Brunst, and 

Spear to fund their defense, including discovery review, expert retention, and trial preparation. These 

defendants generally do not have the funds to review discovery, retain experts, and properly prepare 

for trial. On their shoestring budgets, they have been able to identify experts who are willing to 

testify in this case, but they have generally been unable to retain them, and cannot do so without 

additional funds. Further, most of them have incurred significant arrears with their counsel, as 

counsel conduct a limited review of the discovery to meet scheduling deadlines, but are unable to 

pay their current counsel, or to retain contract counsel, to conduct the in-depth review of the 

discovery necessary to locate all exculpatory material. The same is true with trial preparation. 

Accordingly, Defendants propose suspending the current scheduling order until discovery is 

complete, or alternatively, and at a minimum, adjourning all outstanding dates by six months. 

II. STATUS OF DISCOVERY AND JENCKS 

A. The government has not produced any additional server discovery. 

The Court requested an update as to the status of the review of the servers. Doc. No. 545. 

Nothing has changed since the parties were last before the Court. At that time, Defendants explained 

that that government seized at least 106 servers, currently had possession of 46 servers, provided 

imaged copies of five servers, and was still awaiting approximately 60 additional servers from 

Amsterdam. Defendants explained that no meaningful “inspection” had occurred of the servers in 

the government’s possession and that the government was refusing to even copy the servers in its 

possession. Beyond forensic images of that data, Defendants need and requested “access to the 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 6 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

4 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

servers in the functioning condition that they were in when the government seized them.” See 

Transcript at 28:5-28:7. 

To effectively mount a defense to the charges, Defendants need access to the Backpage.com 

computer systems with the same functionality and in the same condition and configuration they were 

in at the time of the government’s seizures, so Defendants can search the data for exculpatory 

information. Defendants explained this request in more detail in a May 23, 2019 letter to the 

government. See Exhibit B. As of the time of this filing, the government has not responded. 

At a minimum, Defendants need to determine the type of data that resides on each server 

and whether that data is pertinent to the defense. It is impossible to identify data that might be 

relevant to the defense without knowing what data is on the servers.2

 Until yesterday, despite 

repeated requests, the government had not even provided Defendants with an overview of the 

information that is contained on the servers in its possession. It also now refuses to provide imaged 

copies of the servers in its possession, despite previous representations that it would do so. See 

Exhibit C, AUSA Rapp’s December 10, 2018 Letter, at 2 (“Once all servers are imaged, investigators 

will be able to provide hash verified image copies of all imaged drives. Due to the capacity of the Backpage 

servers this will be a time intensive undertaking and the imaged copies will be distributed over hundreds 

of hard disk drives.” (emphasis added).) 

The government only produced imaged copies of five servers on March 8, 2019. The 

government’s decision to produce imaged copies of these servers was guided by information it 

received from a cooperating witness whom the Defendants have not been able to question. See 

Transcript at 32:9-32:17. Imaged copies of these five servers were delivered in 56 separate hard 

drives containing 69 terabytes of data. The data is not viewable on a standard computer, and 

Defendants must retain a forensic expert with adequate infrastructure to even view the data. In its 

December 10, 2018 letter, the government recognized this problem: “These raw database files cannot 

 

2 For example, the information the government provided just yesterday in the exhibits to its status 

report states that one server contains “email and subpoena data preservation requests.” (Doc. 646, 

Ex. D, p. 7.) Defendants don’t believe the government has produced the data from this server, but 

both email and evidence of Backpage.com’s cooperation with law enforcement investigations 

plainly are relevant to the defense. In light of Backpage.com’s extensive cooperation with law 

enforcement, Defendants expect this data will be voluminous. 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 7 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

5 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

simply be reviewed or loaded into a viewer to reconstruct the data. We are currently working on a 

solution to review these database files and correlate the images posed [sic] to the image server to the 

posts from the database files.” Exhibit C. Despite acknowledging that Defendants cannot review 

this evidence, the government has not provided Defendants with access to the data in the same 

functionality, condition, and configuration it was in at the time of the government’s seizures, nor has 

the government provided any “solution” for correlating the millions of pieces of disparate data 

contained across any of the imaged hard drives. 

Barring technical issues and assuming that these five servers were imaged correctly with no 

errors, Defendants understand that it would take a forensic expert approximately 1,380-2,760 hours 

(8-16 months of full time work) and untold costs to forensically analyze the data contained on the 

56 hard drives alone. Further, these hard drives alone are essentially useless without additional 

information such as how the hard drives were configured in each server, how each server was 

configured and connected to the other servers, and recreation of the relational codes that made the 

website and database functional. None of this would be required to access the data if the government 

had not destroyed Backpage.com’s computer systems. 

Moreover, despite the December 3, 2018 deadline for discovery, the government has yet to 

provide payment processing data from the Backpage.com servers, and other records, related to the 

dozens of money laundering counts against Defendants. The government claims Defendants were 

laundering money, misleading the public, misleading banks, and misusing merchant accounts, but 

has produced almost no evidence relating to these charges, and none from the online payment 

processing databases. Defendants have repeatedly requested this information. The government has 

represented that it believes the data from the online payment processing databases is contained 

among the approximately 60 servers that have been forthcoming for months from Amsterdam. On 

April 23, 2019, the government indicated that “we’ll get that to them hopefully within the next six 

weeks.” Transcript at 34:5-34:6. The government has not responded to any requests as to the status 

of the Amsterdam servers (though the government’s status report filed yesterday evening provides 

another proposed timeline as to their arrival), and Defendants have been and presently remain 

entirely without access to the payment processing data in the same functionality, condition, and 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 8 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

6 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

configuration it was in at the time of the government’s seizure. Consequently, Defendants cannot 

begin to adequately prepare their defense to the 48 counts of money laundering charges. 

B. The government has not provided all Bates numbers of its trial exhibits. 

At the last hearing, Defendants demonstrated to the Court that most of the government’s 

lengthy trial exhibit list did not include an identifying Bates number that corresponded to the 

discovery the government had produced. See Transcript at 35:25-39:25. On April 23, 2019, the 

Court directed the government to provide the Bates number of each of its trial exhibits, and the 

government agreed. See Doc. No. 545; Transcript at 43:12-43:14, 42:22-42:23, 46:6-46:8. Defendants 

reiterated this request in correspondence with the government subsequent to the last hearing. 

On the afternoon of May 29—three days before this report was due—the government sent 

defense counsel a letter purportedly updating their exhibit list. That list presents at least three issues: 

(1) the list is incomplete, (2) the list cites to Bates prefixes that the government has not produced, 

and (3) the list reordered and relabeled the government’s exhibits, rendering all work done to date 

to find and identify previously identified exhibits moot. In its ten discovery productions from May 

2018 through April 2019, the government has sent nearly eleven million pages of documents, all of 

which are Bates-stamped with the prefix “DOJ-BP.” See Exhibit D (collecting the government’s 

discovery production cover letters). Yet its updated, 76-page exhibit list includes 150 exhibits that 

are identified either with multiple other Bates prefixes that the government has never produced to 

Defendants or with no Bates page(s) at all. 

Defendants’ request was and remains for the government to send complete identifying Bates 

numbers for all trial exhibits of documents it has produced. 

C. No additional Jencks materials have been disclosed. 

The Court also requested an update as to the status of the government’s Jencks Act 

production. Doc. No. 545. Since the last status conference, the government provided a draft of 

Daniel Hyer’s cooperation addendum and later his signed cooperation addendum. The government 

neither produced nor identified any additional Jencks Act materials and represented that it has 

produced all Jencks Act material in its possession, except for Carl Ferrer’s materials which it will 

produce by the extended deadline of June 25, 2019. 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 9 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

7 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

Defendants’ ability to prepare their defense is crippled by the government’s withholding of 

its main cooperator’s Jencks Act materials. The scheduling order to which Defendants agreed 

contemplated that Jencks Act materials would be provided by February 2019. Defendants believe 

Ferrer is the government’s key alleged percipient witness, and Defendants therefore will not be able 

to make significant decisions as to necessary investigations, witnesses to call, or evidence to rebut 

Ferrer’s claims until Defendants have received and reviewed Ferrer’s Jencks Act material, which they 

expect will be voluminous. 

III. REQUEST FOR DEADLINES 

The current state of discovery renders undersigned counsel unable to adequately represent 

Defendants, unable to identify exhibits and witnesses by current deadlines, and unable to identify 

and bring all motions by current deadlines. Thus, Defendants propose suspending the current 

scheduling order until the government has complied with its discovery obligations. As the Court 

noted at the April 23, 2019 hearing, “until the government gets [the Amsterdam] servers in their 

possession, [it] seems premature to talk about ... what is realistic” in terms of the scheduling order. 

See Transcript at 31:12-31:17. Alternatively, in the meantime, Defendants propose extending the 

outstanding deadlines in the scheduling order by at least six months. 

Given the incomplete discovery Defendants have received to date and the lack of clarity from 

the government, it appears that the government’s case is predicated on four main categories of 

evidence: (1) claims that the Backpage.com website was mostly, if not entirely, ads for prostitution; 

(2) individual ads as alleged in the Superseding Indictment; (3) a limited number of purported factual 

witnesses who presumably will say that Defendants were present when certain things were said or 

done; and (4) a scattershot of inadmissible hearsay conclusions, including news reports, a Senate 

report, and police investigations of murders and other crimes completely unrelated to the act of 

publishing. 

As to the first category of the government’s evidence, claims that the entirety of the 

Backpage.com website was for prostitution, Defendants accordingly must be able to access the 

entirety of the website and utilize experts and others to rebut and defend against these claims. 

Defendants currently do not have access to the website in any format, let alone in the format and 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 10 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

8 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

with the same functionality, condition, and configuration as when the government seized it. 

Regarding the government’s reliance on specific cherry-picked advertisements, Defendants need to 

be able to search the Backpage.com database, with the same functionality it had when the 

government seized it, to be able to meaningfully investigate each ad, its history, any changes or 

modifications made to the ad, whether the ad was reported to law enforcement, whether the ad was 

free or paid, and other potentially exculpatory information. Defendants do not have meaningful 

access to this type of information now either. As to the government’s third category of evidence, its 

percipient factual witnesses, it is known that Carl Ferrer is the government’s key witness. The 

government has not produced any of Ferrer’s statements, interviews, testimony, or Jencks Act 

materials. Once Defendants receive and review this forthcoming voluminous information, 

Defendants will need to conduct substantial additional investigation into people and things 

mentioned by Ferrer. Defendants have no ability to do this at present. And finally, regarding the 

government’s reliance on hearsay conclusions of third parties, which comprise the bulk of the 

government’s exhibit and witness lists, Defendants anticipate motion practice challenging 

admissibility and the government’s predicating its case on non-admissible evidence. 

As discussed above, it is logical to suspend the briefing schedule until the Court rules on the 

pending motion to dismiss (Doc. No. 561). That ruling may terminate the case or at least refine the 

issues, which would then be addressed via further motion practice and litigation, including, but not 

limited to, motions for grand jury instructions and transcripts. Even if the pending motion to dismiss 

is not granted, the ruling on the motion may inform the discovery necessary to review for trial. 

Moreover, should the case continue past the motion to dismiss, Defendants need time to 

adequately review discovery produced to date, receive and then review voluminous outstanding 

discovery, and prepare a trial defense. The failure to receive the additional outstanding discovery 

and the inability to the access the few databases produced to date with the same functionality and in 

the same condition and configuration as when they were seized stymies Defendants’ ability to 

prepare. See, e.g., Exhibit B. For counsel for the Defendants to meet their obligations under the 

Sixth Amendment, it is fundamental that Defendants have access to, and the ability to meaningfully 

analyze, the data, including ad histories and financial transactions, on which the government’s case 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 11 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

9 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

is predicated. At present, Defendants are not able to do that. Additionally, Defendants still await a 

response from the government to their May 23, 2019 letter. Id. The government’s response to this 

letter may necessitate forthcoming motions to compel discovery. Defendants intend to file a motion 

and/or supplement this report in advance of the June 24, 2019 status conference regarding discovery. 

Further, additional time also is needed to permit new counsel to obtain the resources and 

infrastructure needed to review the many millions of documents the government has produced and 

continues to produce, such as possible assistance from the National Litigation Support Team’s 

Coordinating Discovery Attorney program. New counsel will file a separate motion to continue 

which will further elaborate on these issues and the need for additional time. 

Additionally, the appeal of defendants Larkin, Lacey, Brunst, and Spear is pending before the 

Ninth Circuit, with expedited oral argument set for July 9, 2019. Because this appeal addresses issues 

of the First Amendment as it relates to the government’s pretrial seizures of publishing assets and 

current prosecution of publishers, it makes sense to await the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. The 

government’s sweeping seizures in the Central District of California have been the subject of 

substantial litigation. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling regarding these seizures will inform the future of 

the case, as Defendants will obtain the resources needed to the defend the case or will be forced to 

pursue additional litigation and seek alternate remedies. The Ninth Circuit’s decision likely also will 

clarify the First Amendment interests at issue in this case, impacting many aspects of this case.3

 

 As it stands, undersigned counsel are unable to adequately do all that is needed to defend this 

case by the dates set in the current scheduling order at Doc. No. 131. It would be a denial of due 

process to force Defendants to go to trial before they are adequately prepared. Accordingly, in light 

 

3 The DKT Liberty Project, Cato Institute, and Reason Foundation also filed an amicus brief in 

support of the Defendants’ appeal. The concluding paragraph of the amicus brief states: 

“Backpage.com has been repeatedly subjected to prosecutorial attempts to impose criminal liability 

for what courts have repeatedly recognized is constitutionally protected expression. The 

government, however, has not stopped with prosecuting Backpage.com. Instead, it appears that the 

government intends to bankrupt anyone who has ever had anything to do with Backpage.com. The 

government’s unconstitutional seizure of assets and proceeds from Backpage.com and weekly 

newspapers, then, is simply one more attempt to erode the First Amendment’s carefully erected 

bulwarks around free expression. This Court should not countenance this attempt.” United States v. 

James Larkin et al., Case No. 18-56455, Doc. 29, p. 17-18 (citations omitted). 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 12 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

10 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

of the above, and in consideration of the entire record of this case, Defendants respectfully request 

that the Court suspend the current scheduling order until the government has completed discovery. 

Alternatively, in the meantime, Defendants request that the Court move all outstanding dates in the 

scheduling order back by at least six months. 

Dated: June 1, 2019 Respectfully submitted, 

 BIENERT | KATZMAN PC 

 s/ Whitney Z. Bernstein 

 Whitney Z. Bernstein 

 Thomas H. Bienert, Jr. 

 Attorneys for James Larkin 

LIPSITZ GREEN SCIME CAMBRIA LLP 

s/ Paul J. Cambria, Jr. 

Paul J. Cambria, Jr. 

Erin McCampbell 

Attorneys for Michael Lacey 

DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE LLP 

s/ James C. Grant 

James C. Grant 

Attorneys for James Larkin and Michael Lacey 

BIRD MARELLA BOXER WOLPERT NESSIM 

DROOKS LINCENBERG AND RHOW

s/ Gary S. Lincenberg 

Gary S. Lincenberg 

Ariel A. Neuman 

Gopi K. Panchapakesan 

Attorneys for John Brunst 

FEDER LAW OFFICE, P.A. 

s/ Bruce Feder 

Bruce Feder 

Attorneys for Scott Spear 

DAVID EISENBERG PLC 

s/ David Eisenberg 

David Eisenberg 

Attorneys for Andrew Padilla 

JOY BERTRAND ESQ LLC 

s/ Joy Bertrand 

Joy Bertrand 

Attorneys for Joye Vaught 

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 13 of 14
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

11 

DEFENDANTS’ JOINT STATUS REPORT 

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

I certify that on this 1st day of June 2019, I electronically transmitted a PDF version of this 

document to the Clerk of the Court, using the CM/ECF System, for filing and for transmittal of a 

Notice of Electronic Filing to the following CM/ECF registrants listed below. 

/s/ Whitney Z. Bernstein 

Whitney Z. Bernstein 

Anne Michelle Chapman, anne@mscclaw.com 

Erin E. McCampbell, emccampbell@lglaw.com 

Anthony R. Bisconti, tbisconti@bienertkatzman.com 

Ariel A. Neuman, aan@birdmarella.com 

Bruce S. Feder, bf@federlawpa.com 

James C. Grant, jimgrant@dwt.com 

Lee David Stein, lee@mscclaw.com 

Paul J. Cambria, pcambria@lglaw.com 

Robert Corn-Revere, bobcornever@dwt.com 

Ronald Gary London, ronnielondon@dwt.com 

Janey Henze Cook, janey@henzecookmurphy.com 

John Lewis Littrell, jlittrell@bmkattorneys.com 

Seetha Ramachandran, Seetha.Ramachandran@srz.com 

Thomas H. Bienert, Jr. tbienert@bienertkatzman.com 

Whitney Z. Bernstein, wbernstein@bienertkatzman.com 

Gary S. Lincenberg, glincenberg@birdmarella.com 

Gopi K. Panchapakesan, gpanchapakesan@birdmarella.com 

Michael D. Kimerer, mdk@kimerer.com 

Rhonda Elaine Neff, rneff@kimerer.com 

David S. Eisenberg, david@deisenbergplc.com 

Joy Malby Bertrand, joyous@mailbag.com 

John Jacob Kucera, john.kucera@usdoj.gov 

Kevin M. Rapp, Kevin.Rapp@usdoj.com 

Margaret Wu Perlmeter, Margaret.perlmeter@usdoj.gov 

Reginald E. Jones, reginald.jones4@usdoj.gov 

Peter Shawn Kozinets, Peter.Kozinets@usdoj.gov 

Andrew C. Stone, andrew.stone@usdoj.gov

Case 2:18-cr-00422-DJH Document 627 Filed 06/01/19 Page 14 of 14