Ronald J. Hansen

The Republic | azcentral.com

A non-profit media organization has rejected U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema's donation of more than $10,000 given to the Arizona Democrat's campaign by owners of a website accused of knowingly accepting ads offering sex with underage girls.

Hours after the donation was turned down Tuesday, Sinema found a group that combats sexual abuse willing to accept an even larger sum that included donations from others with ties to the controversial classified-ad website Backpage.com.

It was the second attempt in recent days to shed money her campaign accepted last year from Michael Lacey and James Larkin, founders of Backpage.com and former Phoenix New Times executives.

Last week, Sinema donated $10,600 to Friends of Public Radio Arizona, but on Tuesday morning the non-profit, realizing the source of the money, moved to return it, said Lou Stanley, executive director of the media non-profit.

“We did not find out until this morning where the money had come from, so as soon as we found out, we dealt with it,” he said. The organization is affiliated with KJZZ and Spot 127, a media center to help “teens find their voices and engage with their communities,” according to its website.

By Tuesday afternoon, Sinema had donated $53,400 from other Backpage.com employees and family members to the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence.

"I am aware of the source and, given the work we do to combat sexual violence in all of its forms, we feel that the money can be put to good use addressing and basically going against the work that was used to generate that money in the first place," said Allie Bones, CEO of the coalition.

"We respect Spot 127's decision," said Macey Matthews, a spokeswoman for Sinema, in a statement.

MORE: Emails reveal how Backpage edited sex ads. Will that be its undoing?

Backpage execs' many political donations

At the same time, David Garcia, a Democrat running for governor, said he would donate $2,000 to charity stemming from a 2014 donation in that amount he received when he was running for the superintendent of the state's public schools.

“We just learned this morning that in 2014, Michael Lacey was one of thousands of contributors to David’s 2014 campaign," said Bill Scheel, a spokesman for Garcia. "David’s entire career has been spent in service to Arizona’s young people and that donation shouldn’t cloud that record."

The campaign plans to donate the money to a charity that fights sexual abuse, Scheel said.

Lawyers for Lacey and Larkin have said they expect indictments against the men from a federal grand jury reviewing their business. Their political activity was highlighted in a story by Arizona State University students published last week in The Arizona Republic.

Among their findings, Lacey and Larkin have made federal and state political contributions totaling $162,200 since 2013, with $60,200 of that given to Arizona politicians and political committees.

Sinema received the largest share directly from Lacey and Larkin, $10,600 in 2013 and 2016. Federal campaign-finance records show Sinema received an additional $10,800 in donations from the spouses of two other Backpage.com executives on the same day in 2016 when Lacey donated $5,400 to her.

Those executives, Scott Spear and John Brunst, and their spouses have made federal contributions of $195,700 since 2013, $29,700 of that to Arizona politicians. The donations from Spear and Brunst mirror many of those made by Lacey and Larkin.

Larkin and Lacey, along with their business partners, have been besieged by a growing number of legal difficulties: criminal charges in California; lawsuits by trafficking victims in six states; and a blistering report in January by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. That report, “Backpage.com’s Knowing Facilitation of Online Sex Trafficking,” concluded that Backpage.com knowingly accepted ads from pimps who had coerced underage children into having sex for money.

Matthews initially said Tuesday the campaign didn’t connect Lacey to Backpage.com.

"Contributions from Mr. Lacey were accepted before any criminal or civil charges were filed against him. The campaign had no knowledge of Mr. Lacey's role in the ownership or control of Backpage.com at the time of his donations. When the campaign learned of Mr. Lacey's involvement in Backpage.com, we donated the contributions in question to a local charity supporting aspiring journalists," she said in a statement.

Stanley, with Friends of Public Radio, said his organization moved quickly once it understood the source of the money.

“We contacted the congresswoman’s office and said we would be returning it,” he said. “They simply said they would take the money back. It’s going out in today’s mail.”

More Dems try to distance themselves

Republicans jumped on the Backpage.com issue, saying lawsuits over the organization's operations date to 2011.

“You can almost smell the desperation from Kyrsten Sinema as she tries furiously to rewrite history," said Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee. "Kyrsten was just exposed for taking dirty money made by selling children for sex and now she’s lying about it. Sinema’s constituents deserve to see the evidence supporting her false assertions, or the stench surrounding her will continue to fester.”

"Kyrsten Sinema is absolutely trying to pull a fast one on Arizonans and get away with it," Arizona Republican Party Communications Director Torunn Sinclair said in a written statement. "She's deceiving her constituents. Unless she hasn't been following what her fellow Arizona legislators have been doing in Congress, or hasn't followed the news for nearly a decade, she knew where this money came from and what it represents."

Last week other Democrats also sought to distance themselves from Backpage.com contributions.

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico accepted $10,800 from both Lacey and Larkin in 2016. A spokeswoman said Udall planned to donate the money to charity. He said in an emailed statement, "These are very serious and disturbing allegations."

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego said the congressman was not aware of the controversy surrounding Backpage in 2014, when Gallego received $2,600 from Lacey. Gallego planned to donate that amount to UMOM, an Arizona shelter for homeless families.

The original story about the donations published in The Republic was written by students at Arizona State University under the supervision of Walter V. Robinson, who edited the Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of sexual predators in the Catholic Church.

Republic reporter Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this article.

READ MORE:

Attorney for Backpage calls raid a stunt

Ex-New Times owners charged in Backpage raid

Former Phoenix New Times owners ask judge to drop pimping charges

Judge rejects charges against Backpage owners who founded Phoenix New Times

Documentary on child sex trafficking points finger at Backpage.com