Former Backpage CEO gets three years of probation after testifying at trial about site’s sex ads
September 9, 2025
The former chief executive for the now-shuttered classified site Backpage.com was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $40,000 in restitution for conspiring to facilitate prostitution by selling sex ads. The judge also declined a prosecutor’s request to sentence the company’s former sale director, who had pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, to probation. Judge Diane Humetewa commended former CEO Carl Ferrer and sales director Dan Hyer for acknowledging their crime early in the case and for their extensive cooperation in revealing how Backpage operated. Ferrer and Hyer were the last defendants to be sentenced in a sprawling seven-year federal case in Arizona against Backpage’s operators.