5 ms·

All counts of the indictment, including the money laundering, are based upon two conditions. Both must be true for any of the counts in the indictment to be ju

All counts of the indictment, including the money laundering, are based upon two conditions. Both must be true for any of the counts in the indictment to be judged a crime. These two conditions are: a) use of interstate mail and communications for illegal activity b) the illegal activity is specifically a violation of the California code prohibiting prostitution: facilitation of prostitution. So the federal indictment is completely dependent upon the criminal violation of a state law. However, myredbook, or its owners, have never been indictment, let alone convicted, by the State of California. This is after more than a decade of operation. Furthermore there is a federal law stating that web site owners / operators do not take any legal responsibility for the content provided by others. It does not matter if the web site owners charge or not charge these other parties for using the site. This seems to be a really really bad legal case. At minimum the feds are presuming that the owners of my redbook would be convicted of a state crime, if the state would just prosecute them. As we all know, the American legal system presumes innocence until being convicted in a court of law. So legally the feds don't seem to really have a case. All they seem to be doing is hassling the owners of myredbook with the intent of shutting the web site down. So this totally appears to be someone in the justice department driving a moral or religious agenda and not really a legal one.

JorgeJetson 12y ago
Here is the Federal Code that seems to be applicable: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1952 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1952 After reading this code it appears that the owners of myredbook need not be actually the people convicted of the illegal acts which are illegal by California state law. The owners of myredbook only need to facilitate the illegal acts of others. Since some posters / advertisers on myredbook have been convicted of prostitution this is likely the basis of using the California state prostitution laws in the myredbook owners federal indictment. Furthermore, since the owners of myredbook used an interstate means, the Internet, and transferred funds between banks, maybe, in different states. This would be the other basis necessary to violate the above referenced federal law. So it looks like the myredbook owners may be in pretty big trouble.
davorak 12y ago
> a) use of interstate mail and communications for illegal activity b) the illegal activity is specifically a violation of the California code prohibiting prostitution: facilitation of prostitution. So the federal indictment is completely dependent upon the criminal violation of a state law. However, myredbook, or its owners, have never been indictment, let alone convicted, by the State of California. This is after more than a decade of operation. Good point, it is times like this that I miss GrokLaw for dependable in-depth analysis.

JorgeJetson 12y ago

Here is the Federal Code that seems to be applicable: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1952 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1952 After reading this code it appears that the owners of myredbook need not be actually the people convicted of the illegal acts which are illegal by California state law. The owners of myredbook only need to facilitate the illegal acts of others. Since some posters / advertisers on myredbook have been convicted of prostitution this is likely the basis of using the California state prostitution laws in the myredbook owners federal indictment. Furthermore, since the owners of myredbook used an interstate means, the Internet, and transferred funds between banks, maybe, in different states. This would be the other basis necessary to violate the above referenced federal law. So it looks like the myredbook owners may be in pretty big trouble.

davorak 12y ago

> a) use of interstate mail and communications for illegal activity b) the illegal activity is specifically a violation of the California code prohibiting prostitution: facilitation of prostitution. So the federal indictment is completely dependent upon the criminal violation of a state law. However, myredbook, or its owners, have never been indictment, let alone convicted, by the State of California. This is after more than a decade of operation. Good point, it is times like this that I miss GrokLaw for dependable in-depth analysis.