Alleged ‘GirlsDoPorn’ sex trafficking boss extradited in San Diego Los Angeles Times

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“Plaintiff fears for her life and safety, as well as the lives and safety of people close to her,” the complaint continues. The lawsuit also alleges that Pratt forced Althaus to perform oral sex on him and threatened her with a gun. The complaint further alleges that Pratt took Althaus’ cellphone during the filming and only gave it back to her afterward. Another victim said that when she met Wolfe, the proverbial monsters underneath her childhood bed “became a reality.” She called Wolfe “bottom-of-the-barrel scum” and said he and his co-defendants have ruined every relationship she’s ever had.

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“Thank you to our determined FBI San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force and to our federal and international partners for their commitment to making sure that Michael Pratt is brought to justice.” The site’s owners were also sued in San Diego Superior Court by 22 women, who were awarded nearly $13 million by San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright. It means we are now aware that things aren’t always as they seem when it comes to online pornography. One woman stood before Garcia with sutures on her wrist from a recent attempt to end her life, flashing it to the judge as she spoke. In that regard, the case continues to remain unsolved, because this is a problem that will never truly go away for the women that had to live through it.

• One woman said that for years afterward, her video was the first result that came up if her name was searched online.
• Victims said in lawsuit filings that GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys lured them into conversations by posing as a modeling agency in Craigslist ads, with links to fake sites, offering modeling gigs in cities throughout the U.S. and Canada.
• Douglas Wiederhold is the latest defendant to plead guilty in the criminal cases against the website’s owners and operators, whom prosecutors say engaged in a years-long sex trafficking conspiracy in which women were coerced and tricked into appearing in pornographic videos under false pretenses.
• Pratt was arrested in Spain last year after spending years on the run from law enforcement.
• However, Girls Do Porn distributed the videos after they were shot, and they appeared on popular porn websites.

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Per his own lawyers’ admission, Pratt was in New Zealand during the trial, but his parents admit that they haven’t seen him in some time. Hundreds of people who were coerced into performing sex acts by GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys now have the full rights to their videos, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. Given that revenge porn distributors have historically evaded punishment due to insufficient legal guidelines, copyright is a useful tool—copyright holders can fine websites up to $150,000 per image if they don’t comply with DMCA takedown requests. Throughout the alleged conspiracy, Pratt and the co-defendants recruited hundreds of young women from around the U.S. and Canada who were aspiring models, court records show. Once the young women responded to the group’s online ads, Pratt and the others would tell them that the jobs were for pornographic videos and not modeling gigs, according to court documents.

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• Others detailed how they had lost jobs, been evicted, and were estranged from friends and family.
• Girls Do Porn was an official Pornhub content partner, with its videos frequently appearing on the front page, where they gathered millions of views.
• The new lawsuit follows a lawsuit filed last month by Kristy Althaus, Girls Do Porn victim and former runner up for Miss Teen Colorado.
• Hotel room doors were at times blocked by camera and recording equipment, and the victims felt powerless and unable to leave.
• Prosecutors allege he and other GirlsDoPorn employees coerced hundreds of women to appear in pornographic videos under false pretenses, with most of the videos filmed in San Diego.
• While the traffic to the amateur porn site increased tenfold, with its owners bragging about needing to increase their server size in social media posts.

He did the same when questioned about the women being plied with marijuana and/or alcohol before signing their contracts, despite footage being played in court – of videos he had filmed – showing drug paraphernalia being laid out on hotel counters and tables. The plaintiff-victims, some of whom were paying their way through college or needed money for rent, were lured into the defendants’ pornography scheme through phony ads on Craigslist.com for clothed modeling gigs. Victims were promised thousands of dollars for 30 minutes of adult film work and guaranteed that their identities would remain anonymous and that the videos would never be posted online or distributed in the U.S. The defendants represented that the videos would be sold exclusively on DVDs overseas for private use and provided other women as references, who lied to the victims, claiming they had filmed videos and no one had ever found out.

The lawsuit alleges that “as early as 2009, and definitely by fall 2016, MindGeek knew GirlsDoPorn was trafficking its victims by using fraud, coercion, and intimidation as part of its customary business practices to get the women to film the videos.” Pratt is accused of working with four people − Matthew Wolfe, Ruben Garcia, Valorie Moser, and Theodore Gyi − to “recruit young adult women to engage in commercial sex acts by fraud and coercion,” according to court documents. Garcia and other members of the conspiracy took active steps to ensure the victims did not find out that he and the other members of the conspiracy operated GDP and GDT. Garcia knew that most of the young women they were recruiting would have never agreed to appear in a video if they knew that videos of their explicit sexual activity would be posted on the internet and marketed to their friends and family.

Pratt has fled the country and has been charged with additional counts of producing child pornography and child sex trafficking for coercing a 16-year-old into producing a video despite full knowledge of her age. Michael James Pratt, who fled the United States during a San Diego civil trial and was subsequently charged criminally, made his initial appearance in a San Diego federal courtroom Tuesday afternoon. A not guilty plea was entered on Pratt’s behalf to a 19-count indictment that includes charges of sex trafficking, production of child pornography, sex trafficking of a minor, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.

But the lawsuit argues that the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) enacted in 2018 would override a Section 230 defense. Pornhub’s purge of millions of videos, presumably including many of the videos in which the plaintiffs appeared, was announced on December 14. She said when her video surfaced publicly, she was ex-communicated by her church. She said internet trolls still harass her, including re-posting photos of her children that family members have published online. She said she has not registered to vote for fear her home address will be circulated online.

The trial lasted over three months, beginning in August of 2019 and finally wrapping up that November. There was no jury, with the case being heard and decided by Judge Kevin A. Enright himself, who ruled overwhelmingly in the plaintiffs’ favor. Not only would the operators of GirlsDoPorn have to pay the women $12.7 million in damages ($3.3 million in punitive damages, and $9.45 in compensatory damages), but Judge Enright declared that the women would reclaim ownership over whatever footage had been made of them. This would not only help remedy the pain the women had been through but would make it possible for them to file copyright strikes against websites like PornHub – who, because of copyright law, were limited in what they could do for sexual content created by a third party. Now, the women in each clip owned their footage, allowing them to choose what to do with it. It was also learned during these court proceedings that the defendants had engaged in a bizarre conspiracy in an attempt to silence these victims and their legal counsel, after the filing of the lawsuit in 2016.