PHOENIX — The former chief executive for the now-shuttered classified site Backpage.com was sentenced Tuesday 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 to probation or order him to pay restitution, since he had pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge.

U.S. District 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 with prosecutors in revealing how Backpage operated.

Humetewa said Ferrer “shed light on dark operations in our computer world.” The punishments handed out by the judge were

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