GirlsDoPorn
Founded by New Zealander Michael Pratt in 2006, GirlsDoPorn was billed early on as "a reality website that features 18-21 year old females making their very first adult videos." For the next decade, Pratt and his colleagues would attempt to build a porn empire, but it was later learned that they had built their upstart off of nothing more than fraud, deception, and malice…
Certain names in this episode have been changed or redacted to protect individual privacy.
Megan was a young woman from the American northeast, who would become a foster child at the age of 12. She would spend the next handful of years in the foster system, at times struggling with anxiety and depression. While she struggled with these emotional issues at an earlier age than most - which she described as common symptoms of children in foster care - she attempted to create a normal life for herself.
Throughout school, Megan remained active in numerous events: in particular, gymnastics, which she performed in and taught to younger students during her teenage years. This eventually led to her participating in cheerleading throughout high school. She would even begin to appear in beauty pageants, which in turn introduced her to the wider world of modeling.
Here, Megan realized, she could begin to create her own opportunities. As a foster child, she didn't have the same resources that other kids her age had. But through pageants, she began to realize that modeling was a legitimate career path moving forward, and could provide opportunities to not only earn decent pay but to see the world. With her eighteenth birthday approaching, and her beginning to consider college - as well as life in the adult world, as she began to age out of the foster system - she began to look for job opportunities. Eventually, she found one, which provided solid pay for just a few hours' work. For a girl that didn't have many resources to rely on, it seemed like a dream-come-true. But like most things in the world, the reality was more disappointing than the glossy images presented online.
In 2013, a video featuring Megan appeared online, alongside a couple of male figures. This included one cameraman, whose face was never shown but whose voice was rife throughout the video... especially the first few minutes.
Throughout the first few minutes of the video, the cameraman - speaking in a distinctive accent - stumbles his way through a series of intrusive sexual questions: wondering when Megan lost her virginity, who she lost it to, etc. However, after a minute or two, he eventually turns his attention to the actual person in front of him, who, per her own admission, had just recently turned eighteen years old, and had participated in beauty pageants in the past. While asking this question, almost out of bravado, the cameraman spills an important detail about the young woman - which, based on her shocked reaction, wasn't information that she wanted the rest of the world to know.
This young woman, it turns out, not only participated in pageants but had won a couple of the most high profile among them - representing her home state in the Miss Teen International and Miss Teen USA competition that same year. In statements made to pageant officials, she said that she had participated in the pageants to not only stand as a good example for others younger than her going through the foster system but to raise awareness for volunteer efforts with other foster children.
Despite providing contestants with a decent networking platform - and resources to stay in shape while earning relatively useless trinkets - the pageants that Megan participated in didn't provide anything in the form of payment. Hence, her - being a young woman with little in the way of a support structure - taking part in an adult video to support herself through college.
You see, since recording that video, Megan had gone on to higher education, and was using a scholarship she had obtained in high school to study journalism. In addition to participating in pageants and cheerleading, she had also achieved outstanding honors and won numerous academic awards. But now, nearly a year after recording the video, the footage had been uploaded to a subscription-based amateur porn site, which billed itself as the go-to spot on the internet to find attractive, impressionable, barely-legal models. This would turn into just one of this website's many scandals, but by no means the largest or most costly - rather, becoming just great promotion for the site's owners, who stood to profit from the site's name being repeated by newscasters and pundits all across the country.
Megan, on the other hand, had her life changed overnight, with her true identity being revealed to the world just hours after the video appeared online. While she would originally attempt to deny any relation to the video, a subsequent video was obtained by sites like Brobible, which showed her in the same hotel room as the adult film - this time, however, just reading off a prepared statement giving her consent to appear in the flick. In that video, she also revealed her first and last name... seemingly eliminating any potential for her to deny any further.
As if to add insult to injury, this video was released alongside a couple of snide comments from the owners of the site of the original adult film. The producers claim that Megan had only been paid $1,500 for her original appearance, and had asked to come back for a second, but had been rejected by the producers, who critiqued her performance as "frigid at best."
In the wake of this scandal, Megan would be forced to resign her post as Miss Teen USA for her state, due to the pageant circle placing a strong emphasis on qualities like "good health and human character" (even while being owned by the living embodiment of the seven deadly sins, Donald Trump himself). Because of this forced resignation, Megan lost access to whatever benefits she might have obtained through the pageants... 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.
This scandal would be the website's first foray into the headlines, but far from the last, with the owners and producers making international news just a few years later when it was revealed that this wasn't just a porn website run by a couple of perverted guys from New Zealand... but was an international criminal conspiracy, full of several people willing to carry out a litany of crimes - including sexual trafficking, conspiracy, and the production of child pornography - in order to illegally profit off of hundreds of young women.
This is the story of GirlsDoPorn.
Michael James Pratt and Matthew Isaac Wolfe were two friends that grew up together in Christchurch, New Zealand. While they originally attended primary school together, the two would begin to split off in their teenage years, with Wolfe attending the co-ed Burnside High School while Pratt graduated from Christchurch Boys High School. They would remain friends throughout that span, however, and came of age in the late 1990s, when the internet was just beginning to explode in popularity and usage.
Fresh out of high school, the two friends decided to get involved in the burgeoning porn industry, launching a series of websites in the year 2000 (which was the same year they graduated). These websites included Wicked Movies, Kute Kittens, and TeenieFlixxx, all of which were built to direct traffic to other websites: subscription-based platforms where amateur pornographers made their own content. Pratt's and Wolfe's sites would simply play short previews of the content with links to the other sites, and they would earn a small commission for each click-through. It wasn't hugely profitable, but it was easy money for the two.
However, through this work, an idea was formed. One of the platforms that the two were associated with, a website called Exploited Teens (which they directed traffic to through their site TeenieFlixx) had a model that would be recycled by the pair of Kiwis in the future. They wanted to build a site where guys like them could watch amateur girls having sex... not porn stars, mind you, but regular girls. These would be "girl next door" types, who had not yet been introduced to the pornography world and were - in porn terms - "barely legal."
This idea had cemented itself in the mind of Michael Pratt, who decided to begin work on it several years later, in 2006. This is when he began working on the website GirlsDoPorn.com, which featured the same type of content as Exploited Teens: impressionable young women filming their first sex scene. As the New Zealand Herald would report, the site boasted as a tagline:
"This is the one and only time they do porn."
While Pratt began registering the site and setting up the financial end of it in 2006 - while he was living in Brisbane, Australia - it doesn't seem like he really began to work on the content itself until the following year. That is when Pratt decided to move to the United States, where it was not only easier to shoot porn but he could find a larger pool of talent to choose from. After arriving in the states, he recruited his first accomplice: Doug Wiederhold, who he found through a Craigslist ad. Doug would have sex with the women while Pratt filmed, and the two would travel throughout the United States for several months (presumably, living off of the earnings that Michael Pratt had accrued through his prior porn sites). They did this until 2009 when they finally had enough content to officially launch the site...
From its inception in 2009, GirlsDoPorn was billed as:
"... a reality website that features 18-21 year old females making their very first adult videos."
The site would feature a new girl every week, over several years, like clockwork. As he had seen done through his work on prior sites, Michael Pratt would feature small previews of the GirlsDoPorn videos on larger platforms - Pornhub, Xvideos, Youporn - which were some of the largest websites in the entire world. But the clips would always direct viewers to his website, GirlsDoPorn.com, where they could unlock the full video for a monthly subscription.
The site would find a lot of success early on, but that success would continue to snowball in later years, as the site gained more and more recognition in the internet community.
After roughly two years of slow and sustained success, Michael Pratt decided to recruit his old friend, Matthew Wolfe, to help him work on the site in 2011. Wolfe decided to move to the U.S. and live near Pratt in San Diego, California. While Pratt handled a lot more of the executive decisions, Wolfe became involved in the day-to-day operations of GirlsDoPorn, filming the shoots in high-end hotel rooms in Southern California (in fact, it was Wolfe you heard interviewing the woman at the beginning of this episode).
Wolfe would end up shooting more than a hundred videos for GirlsDoPorn, before going on to launch a spinoff venture in 2014 called "GirlsDoToys" (which is exactly what you think it was). Doug Wiederhold - one of Michael Pratt's original male performers - had gone on to launch a spinoff of his own in 2011 called "MomPov" (which, if you're catching onto the subtleties of their clever naming conventions, was centered around older women). Pratt, meanwhile, began to focus more and more on "big picture" stuff, trying to figure out ways to keep the site stocked with attractive young talent, and promotional tools to get the name of the site out into the world-at-large.
This left a void when it came to the day-to-day operations of GirlsDoPorn, which - in addition to being the brand name of this burgeoning porn empire - remained the most profitable outlet among them. To help fill this void, Matthew Wolfe would end up recruiting a new male performer: an aspiring young actor named Ruben Garcia, who often went by the nickname Andre (or Andy/Dre). He would begin shooting videos with Wolfe in 2011, and - as we'll learn - ended up taking on a more hands-on role in the company in the years to come. Almost immediately, he was applauded by many fans of GirlsDoPorn for his rather rough treatment of the young ladies featured in the videos but never had his face appear in the videos... as if by design. Anonymity was key for this company.
Eventually, cameraman duties would be handed off to another new hire named Theodore "Teddy" Gyi, who took over Wolfe's duties of filming the shoots and interviewing the women. He would become the only non-GirlsDoPorn executive to be present in the hotel rooms during filming (an important detail to remember for later on), and his hiring allowed Matthew Wolfe to begin focusing on more "big picture" ideas, alongside his childhood friend, Michael Pratt.
By all indications, this appeared to be a legitimate upstart in the porn industry, which isn't something you see often. The porn industry is often seen as being rather lucrative, but only for those that can manage to get into it and take advantage of the rare opportunities. At least, that's how it was for decades, until the internet began to change everything.
As I detailed a bit at the top of the episode, GirlsDoPorn would gain some national notoriety throughout 2013, when the Miss Teen USA scandal broke for the first time. That scandal would actually be repeated the following year when an additional Miss Teen USA candidate was outed as having appeared in a GirlsDoPorn video; like the prior contestant, she too was stripped of her title and eliminated from all of the Miss Teen USA material (websites, promos, etc.). But these scandals - while damaging for the women involved - only helped the website gain more and more publicity.
A popular subreddit had already begun to pop up on Reddit, and the site would officially launch its own forum in 2014. On both, commenters began to question how the operators of GirlsDoPorn were able to find such attractive young women to appear in their videos with regularity, uploading at least one new video every single week.
The sky was the limit for GirlsDoPorn - or so it seemed - with the site racking up billions of views over a variety of platforms, and making each of the men involved tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands or even millions - of dollars. But, as you can probably already guess, this veneer of success was hiding a much grimier and more painful reality...
In February of 2016, an 18-year-old (who I'll refer to as Jane Doe #15 - for reasons to be explained later) clicked on a modeling ad posted on the Denver-area Craigslist jobs board, which read:
"Exceptionally Cute Ladies Wanted"
The ad explained that young, attractive girls could earn thousands of dollars for modeling work - which would last an hour or two at the most - and featured a link to the website beginmodeling.com (which was a legitimate-looking modeling page featuring pictures of clothed models). Believing that this was legit, Jane Doe responded to the ad. She had been applying to local jobs in the area with little luck and decided to try this out in order to help support herself through college. She sent an email to the address provided on the job posting, attaching a few photos and some information about herself.
A short time later, she received a written response from an individual calling himself "Jonathan N" (who responded using the jobs@beginmodeling.com email address). In this email, Jane was offered $4,000 for a first photoshoot - just regular modeling, mind you - but was told that she could be paid an additional $1,000 for an additional video shoot... which would be a solo sex scene. It became clear to this young woman that this was porn, which she had no interest in, despite the promise of good pay for very little work.
Yet, "Jonathan N" was persistent with his offers, and later managed to arrange a call with Jane. During this phone call, he said that she could earn $5,000 by appearing in a sex scene filmed by his company, to which she asked if it would be distributed throughout North America. "No," said Jonathan, who insisted that this footage would only be distributed throughout Australia and the United Kingdom on DVDs for private collectors. Jonathan promised Jane that this footage would never be released in North America or even on a digital platform - just physical.
Jane Doe #15 later detailed this in a sworn statement:
"He said it would be 30 minutes of filming sex. He said it would be $5,000 dollars. He said specifically about five (sexual) positions, five to seven minutes each. He would fly me out to San Diego, pay for a hotel. And then he just repeatedly said, 'Not online, not online, not in the U.S.' It would be on DVDs to Australia, the UK. And then he said a few other really remote countries, I don't remember. And then I asked if I could just do regular modeling and he said no, it had to be both."
As a show of good faith, Jonathan offered to put Jane in-touch with some prior models he had worked with, who could vouch for the company's good nature. He would then connect Jane to another young woman named "Kaitlyn," who would chat with Jane via phone and text over the next day or so; during which time, "Kaitlyn" assured Jane that the pay was good, the work was steady and reliable, and that nothing she had filmed for Jonathan and his associates had ever appeared online - it was only ever distributed among novelty DVD collectors in what she described as "wealthier countries."
Beginning to grow confident that this was a decent way to earn a nice chunk of change, Jane would speak to Jonathan again on FaceTime. He again assured her that nothing she appeared in would be posted online and that the shoot would be quick and painless - taking less than 30 minutes of her time. He began making final plans to fly her out to San Diego to film the scene, offering an all-expenses-paid trip to Southern California, as well as an opportunity for this young woman to make decent money without having to ask her mom for help (who was already helping support two other children). Jonathan made the final arrangements, and Jane prepared to be treated like a celebrity for a day.
When the day finally came, it would prove to be much less glamorous than expected.
On February 28th, 2016, Jane flew out to San Diego very early in the morning, arriving at around 8:30 AM. Her return flight to Colorado was scheduled for 7:45 that evening, which indicated that this trip was all business - far from the sunny vacation she had been promised. After arriving, she would have to wait at the terminal for quite a while, until she was picked up by a young cameraman named Teddy - who said he worked for the modeling company but seemed to be little more than a lackey. Teddy would begin driving around for the next few hours, during which time, he seemed unable to get his superiors on the phone; proving unable to get ahold of "Jonathan", and seeming flustered at the lack of communication.
It wasn't until 1:00 PM that Teddy finally managed to get someone on the phone, and made arrangements to take the 18-year-old Jane to a hotel in San Diego. They arrived and began taking an elevator to an upper floor. While taking an elevator, a stranger would ask Teddy about the camera equipment he was lugging upstairs, and he would tell them that they were "filming a wedding in town" - an indication to Jane that this shoot might not be on the up-and-up.
When they finally got to the hotel, Jane briefly met an individual that was there to do her makeup before the shoot, and finally got to meet the person she would be filming with: a young man who immediately ran into the bathroom and began vomiting for more than five minutes. Teddy, the cameraman that was setting up the lights and recording equipment, explained that they had all gone out drinking the night prior. A few minutes later, the male performer, Andre Garcia, emerged from the bathroom, carrying with him a stack of papers that he wanted Jane to go through quickly. He barely explained each form as he rushed Jane through the large stack of papers; during which time, he began smoking a joint, which he offered to Jane.
During this brief round of questioning and signing, Jane was assured that this video would not appear online, but that filming would take a bit longer than originally expected... not the 30 minutes she had been promised by Jonathan. Since it was already afternoon, this concerned Jane - who, again, had a return flight scheduled for 7:45 PM - but she figured that these guys were experienced and knew what they were doing.
After being given an opportunity to sign the contract, Andre Garcia took the papers away. Jane would end up asking for a copy of the contract she had just signed, but that would never happen.
The filming of the scene would take place over the next several hours, with Jane Doe telling the individuals at the scene that she wasn't comfortable with the various sexual acts they were telling her to perform. However, the people there - Garcia, who was in the process of brutalizing her on-camera, and Teddy, the cameraman that seemed to encourage it - told her that she had already agreed to be filmed and that they would take her payment away if she backed out now.
In the end, Jane was only paid $3,000 - roughly half of what she had been originally promised. The men present at the hotel told them that that wasn't their fault, it all had to do with the executives at the company; but if she backed out now, she would get paid nothing. So after filming the painful scene, Jane took the money and flew back home.
In the days and weeks to come, Jane would begin speaking to Jonathan again, telling him that she had been paid more than $2,000 less than originally promised. Jonathan would explain that in the footage recorded, she was reportedly "bruised up". In texts sent to Jane, he told her:
"Honestly.. My partner and I were not very impressed with the photos. You have bruises over your body and cuts on your wrists and arms...
"Photos is one thing, in person is another. You were paid very well. $3,000 is about 4x more than the regular pay girls get..."
After a period of weeks of this back-and-forth, Jane had to relent, realizing that she was getting nowhere with this pay dispute - that she had likely been conned by a group of perverts. However, the worst was yet to come.
About a month after filming the scene - and settling back into her life in Colorado - Jane was told by several acquaintances that footage of her filming a sex scene had been uploaded to a website called GirlsDoPorn.com: a website that she had never even heard of. Almost immediately, footage and images of the sex scene began to be distributed to several of her friends and family members, causing irreparable harm to her social and personal life. She was kicked off of her school's cheerleading team, she was hounded and harassed by dozens of people she had never even met before (who recognized her from the countless websites that the preview clips and images had been shared to), and would even begin to experience panic attacks while at school, at work, at home... everywhere. She was even doxxed by people online, who began to find personal information about her from social media sites and apps, which they then posted to the numerous GirlsDoPorn forums online.
When she had recorded the video, back in March, she hadn't been dating anyone. More than a month later, in April, she was... a boyfriend that decided to end things now instead of getting further invested in a woman that had filmed porn. Jane would end up having to move twenty minutes away from her school - just to avoid the embarrassment that followed her with regularity - and would have to begin using her middle name professionally (just to get a foot in the door with prospective employers). But even then, she began to fear that anyone and everyone knew, and was later prescribed antidepressants by her therapist to deal with the depression and anxiety that became a part of her everyday life.
Jane would unsuccessfully attempt to get the video removed online: at first, reaching out to Jonathan N - the guy that had recruited her - but never hearing anything back. Texts, emails, and phone calls went unreturned. She would even reach out to Kaitlyn, the woman that had originally assured her that working for this modeling company was a good decision. In a text message, Jane wrote:
"It's on a website now and my whole town back home knows. This ruined my life."
Just like with Jonathan, Jane would never get a response from the woman. In fact, almost everyone involved with the production of the video seemed to have ghosted her - dropping her like a bad habit the moment she stopped being profitable for them.
Jane Doe #15 would later recount:
"If I had known that, not only was it going on the internet, but that they were posting it on the internet, that my name would be attached to it, that it would be in the United States, and that I wouldn't be paid $5,000, but $2,000 less, and insulted because I was pale and bruised; if I had known that it was more than 30 minutes of filming, if I had known any of that, just any one of those; if I had known that other girls had been harassed and kicked out of school for it if I had known that I would be kicked off the cheer team; if I had known any of that, I wouldn't have done it."
In their attempt to turn their internet startup into a legitimate porn empire, Michael Pratt and his associates - Matthew Wolfe and Andre Garcia - had concocted an intricate scheme built around lies, which began from the very moment that the victims laid eyes on job postings online, but would persist for long after their videos were uploaded to GirlsDoPorn.
The scheme started with online advertisements, which were often posted on websites like Craigslist in cities all across North America (not only the U.S. but Canada as well). These job posts would ask for female models to submit a series of photos as well as some information about them: their age, their dimensions, etc. These job postings would direct the unwitting victims to modeling websites that appeared benign and legitimate, such as BeginModeling.com, ExploreTalent.com, and websites belonging to an enterprise named Bubblegum Casting. These were all mundane modeling agencies with middling portfolios, but definitely not studios that appeared to produce pornography... just regular-looking websites that were nothing more than fronts to get these young women to let their guard down.
After emailing in to learn more about these ads, the three men from GirlsDoPorn - Pratt, Wolfe, and Garcia - would begin to respond to the young women through aliases. Michael Pratt often used the names Mark and Jonathan, Matthew Wolfe often used the names Ben or Isaac (oftentimes with the surname "Fox" attached), and Andre Garcia typically used the alias of Jonathan. Site owner Michael Pratt was described as a paranoid individual, who was the main driver behind everyone using different pseudonyms, insisting upon it when the others seemed less than committed. Over time, it just became a regular part of their casting and filming process.
While speaking to these women, the three men would begin to offer small payments for modeling jobs, but then sprinkle in tidbits about the potential for lucrative work in the porn industry. They would promise the women that these sex scenes would be recorded only for physical DVD distribution in foreign nations - often relegated to countries like the UK, Australia, and other nations scattered across South America - and would act fast to book travel before the women officially agreed to film. This was an attempt to rush them into accepting whatever offer the men threw their way, now fearing that the opportunity would be lost forever if they decided to back out. Remember: these were women that often (desperately) needed the money.
Amberlyn Clark was a woman hired by GirlsDoPorn to act as a reference for these aspiring models. The young women ensnared in this plot would reach out to Amberlyn in an attempt to verify that the company was legitimate, and would communicate to these women through phone calls and texts. However, it was later determined that she was often just reading off of a script prepared by the GirlsDoPorn executives, and had never filmed a scene with the company. Andre Garcia paid her to assure these young women that the videos wouldn't appear online but were instead distributed on DVD in other countries. According to court testimony obtained later on, Clark was paid anywhere between $25 and $200 per model she convinced to be filmed, based on their attractiveness:
"There was a grade level A, B, and C, pretty much on the scale of attractiveness of the woman. Pretty much I would get paid more for an A-level girl than a C-level girl."
Another woman that did identical work for Andre Garcia stated:
"Garcia coached me on how to correspond with the prospective women, to gain their trust, even if that included telling lies and hiding information. Garcia instructed me to tell women the videos they filmed would never be released in the United States or on the internet."
Many of the women were filmed as soon as they were picked up at the airport, with cameras being on them from the moment they arrived until they left. But when traveling through the hotels - where the video shoots always took place - the production crew would attempt to hide the fact that they were filming. It would later be learned that they didn't have any of the necessary permits to film adult content, and often smuggled the film and sound equipment to the hotel room in suitcases and other large luggage containers.
In several of the GirlsDoPorn videos, you can see these containers and suitcases blocking the front door of the hotel. This was cited by many of the victims as an intimidation tactic used by the producers, who wanted the women to feel trapped inside of the hotel room; unable to say no to the demands they were giving at the last minute, preventing them from leaving.
Upon arrival at the hotel, these young women were instructed by the cameraman - sometimes Michael Pratt, other times Matthew Wolfe or Teddy Gyi - to strip down naked. They were then photographed repeatedly and then critiqued for some made-up flaws with their body: bruises, pale skin, too much cellulite in certain areas, scars, tattoos, etc. Anything that the crew could find. Because of these flaws, they were then told that they weren't going to be paid as much as originally planned.
When the victims would begin to grow nervous - or, as happened in some cases, decided to back out - they were told by the producers that they would have to pay back the cost of everything: airfare, hotels, filming costs, etc. In certain cases, women were told that their return flights home would be canceled, potentially leaving them hundreds or thousands of miles away from home. For women that were already strapped for cash, this was impossible to overcome, and in some cases, provided them with the motivation necessary to simply grin and bear it, even though they were being paid just a fraction of what had been originally promised. After all, it was better than nothing, right?
Even then, they were told to act bubbly and excited during filming, or risk being docked even more pay. In the case of one young woman (Jane Doe #17), she wasn't even told that she was filming a sex scene until she arrived at the hotel, and was pressured into it by the men present in the hotel room - who began plying her with alcohol the moment that she got there.
This was another common tactic used by the GirlsDoPorn producers: using marijuana and alcohol to lower the inhibitions of the young women being filmed, often to their detriment. These substances would often be introduced either during or just before the contracts were brought out to be signed. More often than not, these contracts were signed by these women while under the influence of weed or alcohol (or both). These contracts were often lengthy, booklet-length documents that required numerous signatures, which the producers rushed them through over just a few minutes. And it's worth pointing out that none of these contracts bore the name of GirlsDoPorn; rather, containing the names of production companies that Michael Pratt had originally established to disguise the ownership of GirlsDoPorn (more on that later). After immediately after signing, the contracts would disappear for good, and the shooting of the scenes would begin.
For many of the women ensnared by this scheme, the filming of the scene was the worst part. What had originally been promised as 30-minutes would often turn into a several hour shoot, during which time the male performer - oftentimes Andre Garcia - treated the women roughly. Dozens of women were slapped and choked in the process of shooting their scene and would report vaginal bleeding afterward. Others said that they were gagged or choked to the point of vomiting during the shoot. Several women even would claim to have gotten STDs from Garcia, which he had either been unaware of at the time of filming or which he had simply never bothered to mention to any of them. Some of the women would even say that Garcia raped them - either during or after filming - with many of them expressing a strong desire to stop filming, but Garcia persevering... oftentimes, doing so even off-camera, for his own pleasure.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of the women featured on GirlsDoPorn were subjected to sex acts that they had not consented to, and which they had received guarantees they wouldn't have to perform on video. Sometimes, they were convinced to do so by the cameraman - who threatened to withhold their pay or recoup the cost of travel - or through force (by Garcia and the other male performers). During filming, they were not allowed to leave the hotel room and were again threatened with the loss of pay, travel fare, lodging, etc.
One woman (Jane Doe #4) would claim that in her 2013 shoot, she suffered an extreme amount of pain during the shoot and asked the two men present (Andre Garcia and Matthew Wolfe) to leave. They told her that they would not stop shooting until they were done, and continued filming for several minutes. Afterward, they cut her pay from $2,000 all the way down to $400 and then locked her out of the hotel room - forcing her to find other accommodations on her own.
In several cases, the women filmed for GirlsDoPorn would be propositioned outside of the video shoot. Andre Garcia, who reportedly sexually assaulted several women before, during, or after the film shoot, would often text them and ask to have sex outside of the shoot. Website owner Michael Pratt would also ask women to have sex with him for generally small sums of money - $400 or so - but was rejected almost every single time.
Weeks or months after filming the scene, these women would then learn that it had been uploaded to the website GirlsDoPorn; oftentimes, learning this information from their friends and family, as the knowledge of these videos began to set their personal lives on fire. Dozens of women reported their social lives falling apart in the wake of the videos being published, and countless among them would report being kicked out of school, disowned by their families, fired from their jobs, attempting suicide, or suffering some other form of life-altering alienation. Dozens would even report long-lasting psychological problems stemming from the videos being published and shared among their loved ones and acquaintances.
When these women would attempt to reach out to the people they had filmed with, they would discover that the information used to contact them - emails and phone numbers - had been deleted or destroyed. The GirlsDoPorn executives often used burner phones and email addresses to communicate with the young women, and would simply block them after filming. When the women did manage to get through to the three men at the top of this fraudulent pyramid, they were then threatened with legal action from the GirlsDoPorn lawyers, who were vicious in their ability to lash out: at least one woman reported cease-and-desist letters being sent to her family, along with nude photos that the women had taken. Another would report getting through to GirlsDoPorn founder Michael Pratt, who openly mocked the woman's pleas to have the video taken down with the text:
"LOL good one"
In dozens of cases, women had to undergo even more harassment due to the owners of GirlsDoPorn uploading the women's true identities to the website PornWikileaks (which was exactly as disgusting as it sounds). This website was a compendium of porn actresses' real names and identities, which included links to their social media accounts, their school & work information, and oftentimes even more personal or intimate details (their home town, address, phone number, etc.). Unbeknownst to these women at the time, the owners of GirlsDoPorn had actually purchased the PornWikileaks domain in November of 2015, and were singlehandedly responsible for the harassment, stalking, and abuse directed towards them in the wake of these videos being uploaded - information that wouldn't become common knowledge until years later.
All the while, the popularity of GirlsDoPorn continued to grow, with each new case of harassment giving the website a splash of publicity. Word-of-mouth was helping GirlsDoPorn become a common name in porn, and the dozens of women whose lives they ruined were just casualties.
These young women - who, in many cases, were just teenagers starting out their adult lives - had agreed to star in a private video in order to get a leg up in life. But in the wake of these videos being published, they were left adrift, with many having to drop out of school, quit their jobs, and oftentimes, leave home because of the harassment that followed them. As I hinted at earlier, many were fired or let go from positions in aspiring career paths or were disowned by their families. Some were kicked out of sororities or other important groups, while others were immediately shunned by boyfriends or fiances. Some began to contemplate suicide or suffered from drastic mental issues. Each of these women had a different life from the others, but they shared a common bond: being chewed up and spit out by a group of men that profited off of their suffering.
It wasn't until 2016 that a small group of these women began to come together, using the same information that had once been used to humiliate: the information publicly released by the GirlsDoPorn website, which had once been used to doxx and shame each of them. Now, it was realized, this same information would allow them to come together to help make sure that other women weren't victimized in the same way moving forward... and maybe bring this demented scheme to an end, once and for all.
In June of 2016, a group of four women - each of whom had appeared in a video uploaded to GirlsDoPorn - filed suit against the site, alleging that the owners and producers had misrepresented themselves over an extended period of time, making numerous false statements in the course of securing the women's appearance in pornographic films - which, they alleged, the men had lied about as well. In the lawsuit, which sought $500,000 for each of the women, it was alleged that the producers of GirlsDoPorn had promised each woman that the video would only be released on physical formats in foreign nations, not on several of the most popular websites in the entire world.
The four women featured in this original incarnation of the lawsuit had been organized by Jane Doe #1, a former law student whose life had been derailed by the scandal that followed in the wake of her video's release. She began struggling with anxiety on a daily basis and had even started to seriously consider suicide in the aftermath, and went as far as having plastic surgery to change her appearance because she didn't want to be associated with the publicly-available video. She was now no longer able to pursue a career in law because of the damage done to her reputation but had ultimately decided to seek change through the legal system, beginning the long and grueling process that this lawsuit became.
Because each of the videos had been filmed in California, it was argued that California law prohibited the validity of contracts if they were signed with false or misleading intentions. For example: if someone misrepresented who they were or what the other person was signing, then that would make the contract fraudulent in nature. Many states have similar statutes, but because these contracts were all signed in California, this law would take precedence over the documents signed by the women in the GirlsDoPorn videos; none of whom had received a copy of their own to review, having been rushed through the process under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Attorneys for Michael Pratt, Matthew Wolfe, and Andre Garcia - the three main defendants in this case - would begin to argue that these four young women were just feeling remorse for having appeared in a pornographic film. Over the next three years, the lawyers for GirlsDoPorn would begin to present a case that amounted to digital slut-shaming, saying that the women only now regretted their appearance after being paid, and were very much in the minority of women featured on the site.
However, the lawsuit would begin to pick up momentum over the next year or two, with eighteen additional women coming forward to join the suit, adding on their own claims of fraud and mistreatment at the hands of the men running this scheme. In at least one case, the young woman had only been seventeen years old at the time she began corresponding with Pratt, Wolfe, and Garcia, who then began making plans to fly her across state lines after her eighteen birthday... which would fall under federal grooming laws.
Attorneys for GirlsDoPorn founder Michael Pratt would attempt to derail the case against him and his accomplices over the next couple of years, trying to push off court proceedings as long as possible. When that failed to prevent the inevitable, Pratt decided to file for bankruptcy, which he hoped would sink the lawsuit by moving it to a separate court and jurisdiction altogether. But, much to his chagrin, the case remained in the California court it had been filed in, due to the work of the plaintiffs' attorney Brian Holm, who was able to produce evidence of Pratt using this bankruptcy as a shield to stall the court proceedings.
However, as this lawsuit continued to fall into place within the court system, it became apparent that the labyrinth of production companies and shell corporations established by Michael Pratt had become a minefield for his opponents' lawyers. A look into the finances of GirlsDoPorn showed that they had once been owned by a parent company called GT Group Ltd., which was a corporation listed in the Panama Papers as a tax haven for several illicit organizations. This group had laundered hundreds of billions of dollars for entities such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Ukrainian gun runners and was also linked to Iranian arms dealers, U.S. lottery scammers, and Russian tax evaders - a who's who of terrible people on a global scale.
But by 2017, ownership of GirlsDoPorn had shifted to Oh Well Media Ltd., another shell corporation created by Michael Pratt, which was based out of the nation of Vanuatu: an offshore tax haven that is considered the "Cayman Islands of the South Pacific." While some locals from Port Vila were technically the registered owners of GirlsDoPorn, it was determined that they did not manage the company or its finances in any way, likely just being chosen at-random by Pratt and his illicit connections to sign a few documents.
It was later learned that Oh Well Media Ltd. had been established in 2006 by Kevin Holloway, a retired attorney from Wichita, Kansas who had a reputation for setting up similar tax havens throughout the South Pacific. Described as one of Pratt's "mentors", Holloway would end up passing away in October of 2018 - just weeks after being subpoenaed to testify in the GirlsDoPorn case (maybe an episode for another day).
It was also learned during this process that Michael Pratt operated another production company called BLL Media Inc., which was the company name used on many of the contracts signed by women for GirlsDoPorn. This was another shell corporation that funneled money to him and his associates, and Pratt's administrative assistant Valerie Moser would testify that the "BLL" in the company's name stood for "BMW, Lamborghini, [and] Land Rover" - with Pratt secretly boasting about him owning one of each.
As you can imagine, the structure of this business model made it nearly impossible for the trial to begin in a timely manner, as it was difficult to determine what Pratt and his associates controlled at any given moment. Making matters even more confusing was the delegation of duties between them, with it being hard to determine what each of the men involved did on a regular basis due to the fluid nature of their roles.
Michael Pratt was the original founder of the company, who served as the cameraman for the first few dozen episodes, which he started releasing in 2009. In 2011, he brought in his old friend Matthew Wolfe to begin doing that job - interviewing and filming - while he took on a more "big picture" role in the company (per his admission). Wolfe would bring in Andre Garcia in 2011 to begin filming with the women, but Garcia quickly exceeded his role as an actor very early on, becoming a full-fledged participant in the deceptive scheme, recruiting women on his own to appear in the GirlsDoPorn videos. Wolfe eventually handed off camera duties to other individuals a few years later, and it seems like he, Pratt, and Garcia were all working on recruitment over an extended period of time... months, maybe even years, during which time, the jobs of each began to blur.
During depositions, lawyer Ed Chapin (who was representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit), would speak to Michael Pratt, who he described as a "very wiley, cagey guy." Speaking to reporters with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he would recall:
"Pratt says he was the guy with the vision for the business... and Wolfe was the guy who did the nuts and bolts work in the business... Interestingly, when you asked them about specifics, Pratt would point to Wolfe and Wolfe would point to Pratt. In this way they would avoid any discussion of specifics."
To many, it seems like the roles between the three men were intentionally blurred, in the hopes of obscuring any blame - and with it, the potential punishment, as they were undoubtedly aware that the work they were doing bordered on unethical behavior. And more often than not, they were willing to go far beyond that into full-fledged criminality.
All three of the men named in the original court filings - Michael Pratt, Matthew Wolfe, and Ruben "Andre" Garcia - were subpoenaed to testify in court in the summer of 2019. However, among them, only Matthew Wolfe and Andre Garcia would make appearances, with 36-year-old Michael Pratt refusing to do so, having returned to New Zealand to visit with his family - ignoring the subpoena entirely.
Present during the proceedings for the civil trial, however, were Michael Pratt's attorneys, who asked Judge Kevin A. Enright to have the women taking the stand - the numerous Jane Does that had been conned by the company - to have to narrate the videos that they had filmed months or years prior (many of whom, under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol). Brian Holm, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, called this tactic "undue harassment," and thankfully the judge agreed.
However, this was just part of the defendants' strategy, which seemed to be centered around embarrassing or humiliating the victims; maybe to prevent them from testifying, or simply to inflict pain on them one last time. Aaron Sadock, Michael Pratt's attorney, said during his opening statements that these young women "knew the risks" of filming porn:
"The plaintiffs in their testimony show that they are aware of the inherent risks. They were aware of Paris Hilton, Kardashians, release of sex tapes. In other words, the plaintiffs' social-media presence, activities online, posting videos themselves make it clear that they inherently knew the risks of being filmed in an adult video."
Attorneys for the defendants would present their case as-if the victims had been aware of the scheme from the beginning, despite the plaintiffs having email and phone records which very clearly laid out a pattern of deception carried out on dozens of women over several years. When the plaintiffs began presenting their testimony, this entire scheme was laid bare for the world to see.
More than two dozen women who had appeared in GirlsDoPorn videos (or videos for the two GirlsDoPorn affiliated sites, GirlsDoToys and/or MomPov) would testify during the court proceedings, with their stories showing a shocking amount of foresight, malice, and methodical planning on behalf of the defendants, as well as an increasing amount of uniformity over the years that the scheme came to maturity. While some of these young women varied in certain ways - having been told different things by different people at different times - the beats of their story unfolded in almost identical ways. Each time, they presented a series of fraudulent statements presented by the defendants, over a prolonged period of time, which had led to them accepting an offer to be filmed... but not for GirlsDoPorn or any other website. And contrary to popular belief, contracts are not valid or binding when signed under fraudulent or misleading conditions.
Judge Kevin Enright would later tell the court:
"Obviously, each plaintiff is unique, but there's a recurring theme or themes. It's not like we are talking about different car accidents. We're talking about similar - from the plaintiffs' point of view - themes and claims and allegations and a lot of similarities. A lot of differences, but a lot of similarity."
Among those called to testify were those involved in GirlsDoPorn itself, among them the three men at the center of the lawsuit: Michael Pratt, Andre Garcia, and Matthew Wolfe.
Michael Pratt, the founder and sole owner of GirlsDoPorn, was again a no-show. He failed to answer his court summons, having returned to New Zealand due to what friend and confidante Matthew Wolfe described as "health issues related to threats he had received," but offering up no details about either the threats or the health issues involved. Wolfe did admit that he had been chatting with Pratt recently over the encrypted messaging app Signal but claimed to have no knowledge of Pratt's whereabouts.
During his own testimony in October of 2019, Matthew Wolfe would admit that he and Andre Garcia were continuing to recruit young women to film scenes for the website, despite them standing trial for widespread fraud. He also admitted to continuing to upload scenes to the website using the same business practices that had resulted in this lawsuit, admitting on the stand that these women were not being told that the videos were ever going to be uploaded to GirlsDoPorn... thus, giving credence to everything that the plaintiffs were alleging. However, when questioned about the specifics of the lawsuit - such as whether these women were being told that the footage they were filming was only going to be distributed on DVDs in foreign nations - Wolfe decided to play stupid. 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.
Andre Garcia - the third of the men alleged to have participated in this long-running scheme - was called to the stand but refused to testify, pleading the fifth to every question asked of him.
Some illuminating information would come from the testimony of two people employed by GirlsDoPorn but were not involved in the running of the company itself.
Theodore "Teddy" Gyi had been a cameraman and interviewer, who had been hired by Matthew Wolfe in the mid-2010s to take over his job filming for the company. From that point moving forward, Gyi had served as the main videographer for the website and had been the only non-executive to know the inner workings of the company - as well as the only other person other than the three named defendants to be in the hotel rooms during the filming of the videos. He would tell the court that he heard Andre Garcia lie to the women involved on several occasions about where the videos would end up once filmed, verifying several statements made about the defendants' malicious practices.
Another very convincing witness was Valerie Moser, Michael Pratt's administrative assistant, who had been hired by the GirlsDoPorn founder in March of 2015 but had been immediately forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement that forbid her from mentioning the name GirlsDoPorn to anyone. She would detail the lengths that Pratt and his associates would go to into lying to the prospective models, and detailed Pratt's abusive, paranoid behavior, telling the court:
"I have seen Michael Pratt attack an employee. [Another colleague] has shown me scars where Michael Pratt stabbed him. I have seen him at his drunkest. I have seen the worst parts of him. I know what he's capable of. I think I understand the way his mind works and that's scary."
Moser was working for Pratt when the original lawsuit was filed against the defendants in 2016, and almost immediately, she had been ordered to begin destroying available evidence: hotel receipts (which showed the purchase of alcohol), wire transfers (to Pratt's and Matthew Wolfe's numerous offshore bank accounts), as well as emails and text messages sent to models. This is when Moser began writing down things in a private journal - which she named her "CYA" ("cover your ass") journal - detailing conversations that she and Pratt were having with anyone (prospective models, other employees, etc.). This also included things that Pratt was having her do around the office, as the lawsuit began to grow in plaintiffs and severity.
Shortly thereafter, Pratt would learn about the existence of this journal, and Valerie Moser was almost immediately fired. However, during her testimony, Moser would admit to playing a vital role in the GirlsDoPorn scheme, having interacted with these women before their shoot: arranging communication, chauffeuring them to-and-from the hotel, taking nude photos of them once there (which she then sent to Pratt and Wolfe), and then managing the logistics of the shoot. After the videos had been uploaded, she was contacted by dozens of women, begging and pleading to have their videos removed from the website; offering to return whatever money that they had been paid. Moser was directed to direct these calls to Pratt or the company's lawyers; who, it was alleged in court, had then begun threatening the victims with cease-and-desist orders and potential lawsuits.
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. They had hired people to harass the 22 Jane Does with numerous phone calls and text messages, posing as potential journalists in an attempt to reach them. They had also doctored images of the women's lawyers in an effort to blackmail them from pursuing the case, harassing these attorneys and their families over weeks (if not months). It would later be learned that a video had been made, containing the images of all 22 women involved in the lawsuit - along with their names and identities - which would have been released in an attempt to embarrass or humiliate the women from testifying. But the video was never uploaded, for whatever reason - with the defendants finally realizing that their actions had severe consequences.
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.
The defendants - namely Michael Pratt, Matthew Wolfe, and Andre Garcia - were then ordered by the judge to turn over any and all material of the young women: photos, other images, video footage, likenesses, copyrights, etc., and then take "active steps" to begin removing them from circulation. Primarily, from GirlsDoPorn and any affiliated sites.
In his ruling, Judge Kevin A. Enright told the court:
"Defendants' tactics have caused the videos to become common knowledge in plaintiffs' communities and among their relations and peers - the very thing that plaintiffs feared and that defendants expressly assured them would not happen. As a result, plaintiffs have suffered and continue to suffer far-reaching and often tragic consequences."
As this trial took place throughout 2019, it became apparent that this wasn't just a civil matter, with the actions described by so many peoples' testimony bordering on criminal behavior. In October of 2019, that became apparent when federal charges were filed against the three men at the center of this lawsuit: Michael Pratt, Matthew Wolfe, and Andre Garcia, who were each charged with a count of sex trafficking by fraud or coercion, as well as a separate charge of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. Both charges carried identical penalties (if found guilty): a minimum penalty of 15 years in prison, with a maximum of a life sentence, as well as a $250,000 fine.
37-year-old Matthew Wolfe and 31-year-old Andre Garcia were taken into police custody on the evening of October 8th, 2019, and a search was conducted by the FBI the following day, October 9th, on the GirlsDoPorn offices in the Spreckels Theatre Building in San Diego. That same day, Michael Pratt's 37-year-old former-assistant Valerie Moser was also charged with conspiracy, having played a part in convincing these young women to cross state lines to participate in amateur pornography under fraudulent purposes.
36-year-old Michael Pratt - who had been absent for the civil trial - was labeled a fugitive from justice by federal prosecutors, who described him as the ringleader in a plot that had used "deception and false promises to lure the [numerous] victims" to appear in pornographic films. The criminal complaint filed by prosecutors would allege that these three men had deceived women over a prolonged period of time:
"Some of the women were pressured into signing documents without reviewing them and then threatened them with legal action or outing if they failed to perform. Some were not permitted to leave the shooting location until the videos were made. Some were forced to perform certain sex acts they had declined to do, or they would not be paid or allowed to leave."
The complaint also alleged that Andre Garcia had sexually assaulted at least two of these women, either before or after the recording of their videos. In one case, he had told the victim that he needed to take her for a "test drive" before shooting a video the following day, and in another, he told her to "stop being a whiny little bitch" when she asked to take a break because of the pain she was in. Another woman altogether claimed that she was forced into performing oral sex on Garcia during their shoot, and afterward, was driven by Garcia to an isolated location where he had forcibly raped her in the backseat of the vehicle. Multiple women also claimed that Garcia had given them STDs, which he had failed to inform them about.
It was also believed that Andre Garcia might have been a previously-unknown individual named "Jonathan," who the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) had been attempting to identify and locate for over a year. This individual had been "attempting to groom minors for sex trafficking," which fit in with the DOJ's filing. Garcia had reportedly been recruiting women for filming purposes up until his arrest in October of 2019. It was reported then that the contracts that he had been working with still had no mention of GirlsDoPorn or the videos ever being uploaded online.
Matthew Wolfe and Andre Garcia were both held without bond, with U.S. Attorneys successfully arguing that the two were significant flight risks that posed a danger to the community (especially the victims, whom they had already shown a proclivity to harassing and threatening in the past). It would later be released by authorities that during the search of the GirlsDoPorn office, investigators found evidence that hinted at the defendants fleeing to countries without extradition agreements. And since Michael Pratt, the site's founder, had yet to be located, that argument seemed to carry some added weight.
According to numerous financial statements and tax filings, it was believed that Pratt and the rest of his accomplices had earned more than $17 million in revenue from the GirlsDoPorn website over an undetermined amount of time; a large chunk of which remained unaccounted for (due, primarily, to the complicated shell game that Pratt had established for the company years prior). Some it was found to have been transferred overseas, to bank accounts registered in the island nation of Vanuatu, while other cash had been converted into various cryptocurrencies.
At the time of the filing of this criminal complaint about one year ago (2019), authorities were still in the process of reaching out to the several hundreds of women affected by this scheme - as well as figuring out the various entities that money from this scheme had been funneled through.
"The FBI is still in the process of identifying all the women recruited, filmed, coerced and defrauded by this conspiracy, as well as the proceeds made from these activities."
Because this expansive criminal case has not yet been settled, I'm sure that part of the story will be continued in a future episode. But whatever happens in regards to this unfolding criminal case is undoubtedly going to become a precedent moving forward for the entire porn industry, which was understandably shocked in the aftermath of this criminal complaint...
In August of 2019, the pornographic website BangBros became a bit of a good guy in this story, when they announced that they had purchased the website PornWikiLeaks.com, the domain that had once been owned by GirlsDoPorn founder Michael Pratt, which had been used to doxx, harass, and stalk the women featured on his site for years. Following this announcement, a video was uploaded to the BangBros YouTube channel, showing an unknown person standing over a pile of hard drives - containing the information compiled on PornWikiLeaks - along with a bottle of lighter fluid and a lighter. The hard drives were then set on fire, hopefully destroying the information that had been used to hurt so many people for so long.
PornHub, on the other hand - the fourth largest website in the world - did the bare minimum required of them, deciding only to remove the GirlsDoPorn creator channel from their platform in October of 2019. This came in the midst of the ongoing civil trial, but only after the owners and employees of the site were charged with sex trafficking, drawing a line in the sand for other providers: commit federal crimes and we'll de-platform you. However, this did little to repair PornHub's already-shattered image, with the company having done little to respond to critics' claims leading up to this decision... with many believing that this was far too little and far too late.
The same could be said for the website Reddit, who shut down the popular /r/girlsdoporn community only in October of 2019, after the filing of the criminal complaint. The subreddit, which had more than 99,000 subscribers at the time, was then permanently banned from the site.
While many were quick to label the GirlsDoPorn scandal as just another example of the porn industry run amok, others were quick to separate the two; arguing that GirlsDoPorn never was a part of the porn industry, but was a criminal enterprise from the very beginning. Most porn companies act within legality - obtaining the proper permits, using a thorough vetting process that ensures actors are healthy and willing to work in the industry, etc. - but GirlsDoPorn never did that. As Kink.com CEO Alison Boden would tell Motherboard reporter Samantha Cole:
"No legitimate porn company operates the way that GirlsDoPorn allegedly did. This isn't an outlier in porn industry operating procedure, it's a series of despicable crimes that were filmed and exploited for profit... I think the GirlsDoPorn case says a lot more about our society than it does about the porn industry."
Personally, I believe that there is a lot of merit to this argument: that society bears more responsibility in this case than the porn industry. After all, for a lot of women, the true anguish of this experience only began when the videos were uploaded online, and their personal information was published for the world to see. That is when society began taking the footage of them at their most vulnerable - literally naked and locked in a room with strangers - and used it to further shame them for doing the one thing that every human tries to do: provide for themselves and their loved ones. And it's not like they could go anywhere to receive help, as many would make the same argument that GirlsDoPorn's lawyers did: that the women only raised issues about this after being paid. As explained by filmmaker Jill Bauer, who spoke to the San Diego Reporter:
"Many of these young women are from small towns. Some are just graduating from high school and are not necessarily considering college, whether for a lack of money... They click on a Craigslist ad and they see potential for quick cash, and also for freedom. Those realities combined with the fact that these women are literally teenagers, raises other concerns - the predatory nature of the amateur films and what, if anything, needs to happen in regards to regulation."
As long as young women exist, there will be those that prey upon them; not only to take advantage of them for their own selfish means but to profit off of them in perpetuity (because, as we all know, "sex sells"). Regulation could definitely help cut back on the risk that young women like this face and some have argued in the wake of this case that perhaps a minimum age needs to be imposed upon the entire adult entertainment industry; perhaps by tying it to the federal drinking age (21) - or some other standard. However, the stigma against pornography and other sex work, the aptly-described "oldest profession," will undoubtedly always exist for a myriad of reasons.
In an interview with Motherboard, Trouble Films founder Courtney Trouble gave - what I believe is - the best possible step forward to help combat reoccurring issues like this:
"Porn is a legitimate industry, but as a vice industry, it can attract people who just want to be part of the fantasy lifestyle of partying and sex... The best we can do is decriminalize sex work so that sex workers who get robbed or raped - or bamboozled - can speak out immediately and not get re-traumatized by litigation further down the line. Stigma against porn and sex work is what makes men like this think they can get away with exploiting struggling women or established professionals."
Over the past year, the GirlsDoPorn website - as well as its affiliates, MomPov and GirlsDoToys - have been permanently shuttered. The same goes for all of its fake modeling websites, such as BeginModeling.com, which were used to trick women into thinking they were a legitimate company. The sites were finally taken down in January of this year (2020), following the resolution of the civil case. However, copies of the videos that were once uploaded to the sites continue to exist on hard drives around the world, being uploaded to torrent sites and other porn platforms with regularity.
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. Reminders of this incident will continue to haunt them as long as the internet exists... and until those that did them harm are finally convicted for their alleged crimes.
Matthew Wolfe and Andre Garcia continue to be held in police custody, awaiting trials that are still some time away. Just a few months ago, Wolfe attempted to be released from jail, citing his minor sleep apnea as a health risk for contracting COVID-19, but that pitiful request was thankfully denied. Some of the associates that worked with him and Garcia are awaiting similar charges, but the biggest unanswered question in this story continues to linger.
Where is Michael Pratt, the founder and sole owner of GirlsDoPorn?
It's unknown when, exactly, Pratt fled the country, but lawyers for the numerous Jane Does allege that during the civil trial last year (2019), Pratt visited South America before he was scheduled to provide testimony. After this mysterious vacation, he flew from Tijuana, Mexico to New Zealand, and his trail has gone cold ever since.
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. Regardless, he would continue to upload videos to the GirlsDoPorn website throughout 2019, even after he and his colleagues had been charged with federal sex trafficking, indicating that these videos had been filmed well beforehand - and that he still had access to some of the company's data storage.
Police had been surveilling Pratt's home in Hidden Meadows, California, which Pratt had not been to since summer of last year - having left behind a cat and several computers. These computers were later removed from the property by a couple of Pratt's former employees, Fredrick and Efrain Jimenez, who were later charged with obstructing sex-trafficking enforcement. When questioned, they claimed to have not seen any computers inside of the home, which went against testimony provided by a pet-sitting service that Pratt had hired to take care of his cat. The brothers plead ignorance, but authorities believe that the two either destroyed or hid the computers somewhere in an attempt to hinder their investigation.
Prior to him having fled the country, Michael Pratt had spoken to colleagues about his desire to run away and live off of the grid; away from where the women that he had deceived - and their lawyers - could touch him. Through messages to his former-assistant Valerie Moser, Pratt had mentioned running away from the U.S., seemingly aware that authorities were attempting to charge him with sex trafficking, and even joked about trying to get his vehicles out of the country before doing so. He had once written to her via text:
"I have some offshore bank accounts stashed with money."
In his testimony for the civil trial, Pratt's associate and friend Matthew Wolfe admitted to moving money out of accounts controlled by his consulting company to offshore accounts on Vanuatu, using the same shell corporations originally established by Pratt. He would also admit to speaking with Pratt as recently as October of 2019, and even admitted to wiring the other man money while he was overseas. It is widely-believed that Pratt has been using this money to subsist for over a year now - during which time, additional charges have been filed against him.
Last November, Michael Pratt was charged with production of child pornography, with investigators unearthing evidence that he had solicited a girl as young as sixteen to film a pornographic film in 2012. It is believed that he went through with this plan, and a few other GirlsDoPorn employees were charged with him. Like the other charges, Pratt has pleaded not guilty to this allegation through his lawyers, but he remains a wanted fugitive to this day, and his whereabouts remain unknown after more than a year.
Pratt was last known to have been visiting his family in Christchurch, but authorities have not stated whether or not they believe him to still be located in New Zealand. It has been stated that Pratt has ties to Australia, as well as Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Singapore, Japan, Chile, Croatia, and France. It's possible that he managed to relocate to any of these under a fake identity.
In September of 2020, the FBI would announce a $10,000 reward for any information that led to the arrest of Michael James Pratt, who stands about six feet tall, weighs upwards of 200 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes, and may have a tattoo on his left arm. He is known to be a private and paranoid person who is prone to emotional outbursts that may turn violent, so please use caution. Very few photos of him exist on the internet, but the ones that do will be posted on the podcast website as well as our social media accounts.
Until Michael Pratt is detained by authorities - and the pending criminal cases against him and his associates are brought to a resolution - this story will remain unresolved.
Episode Information
Episode Information
Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan
Published on on October 25th, 2020
Producers: Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Gabriella Bromley, Peggy Belarde, Quil Carter, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Brittany Norris, Amy Hampton, Steven Wilson, Scott Meesey, Marie Vanglund, Scott Patzold, Astrid Kneier, Travis Scsepko, Aimee McGregor, Sydney Scotton, Sara Moscaritolo, Sue Kirk, Thomas Ahearn, Bryan Hall, Seth Morgan, Marion Welsh, Jo Wong, Patrick Laakso, Alyssa Lawton, Meadow Landry, Tatum Bautista, Teunia Elzinga, Michele Watson, Ryan Green, Stephanie Joyner, Dawn Kellar, Elissa Hampton-Dutro, Ryan Durbin, and Sally Ranford
Music Credits
Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music
Other music created and composed by Ailsa Traves
Sources and further reading
FBI: Most Wanted - Michael James Pratt
[Proposed] Statement Of Decision
Opposition to Matthew Wolfe’s Motion To Rescind Detention Order
Gawker - “Miss Delaware Teen USA Resigns After Porn Video Surfaces”
XBIZ - “Miss Delaware Teen USA Resigns Over GirlsDoPorn Video”
TMZ - “Miss Delaware Teen USA Offered $250,000 Porn Contract”
Slate - “Miss Delaware Teen USA Resigns in Porn Scandal, But Are Porn and Pageants So Different?”
The Washington Post - “Dear Melissa King, I wish you the best”
HuffPost - “Melissa King, Beauty Queen Turned Porn Actress, Spoofs Self With Instagram Photo”
Gawker - “Did a Miss Colorado Teen Runner-Up Lose Her Title Over This Porno?”
HuffPost - “Was Kristy Althaus Stripped Of Beauty Pageant Title Because Of Porno?”
San Diego Reader - “San Diego’s porn studios”
NBC (San Diego) - “Uncovering A San Diego Porn Scheme: Deception, Humiliation Follow Online Ads”
NBC (Los Angeles) - “San Diego Porn Scheme Heads to Court”
Vice (Motherboard) - “Girls Do Porn Goes to Trial Over Allegations Women Were Tricked Into Videos”
Daily Beast - “The Amateur XXX Site Accused of Conning Young Women Into Porn”
The New York Times - “22 Women Say They Were Exploited by Porn Producers”
Vice (Motherboard) - “Bang Bros Bought a Huge Porn Doxing Forum and Set Fire to It”
Daily Beast - “She Was 18 and Says She Was Tricked Into Doing Porn: ‘This Ruined My Life’”
Vice (Motherboard) - “A Girls Do Porn Cameraman Admits He Lied to Women So They’d Film Sex Scenes”
NBC (San Diego) - “San Diego Porn Website Owner’s Whereabouts Unknown”
The Guardian - “Group of US women sue ‘amateur’ porn producer over ‘coercion and lies’”
Courthouse News Service - “Porn Company Employee Says Recruiting Continues During Fraud Trial”
Courthouse News Service - “Woman Testifies She Was Underpaid for Porn Film”
Daily Beast - “A Porn Company Whistleblower’s Shocking Testimony: Attacks, Lies, and Cover-Ups”
ArsTechnica - “Feds hit GirlsDoPorn owners with criminal sex trafficking charges”
NZ Herald - “Kiwi porn boss on the run from FBI is reportedly in New Zealand”
The Verge - “Pornhub removes Girls Do Porn, finally drawing a line at sex trafficking charges”
Vice (Motherboard) - “Girls Do Porn Was a Crime Ring, Not a Porn Site, Industry Experts Say”
XBIZ - “Here’s What You Need to Know About the GirlsDoPorn Case”
Vice - “She Helped Expose Girls Do Porn, But She Can Never Outrun What It Did to Her”
Otago Daily Times - “The schoolboys, the $17m porn empire, and the FBI sex ring”
Vice (Motherboard) - “Reddit Banned a Hugely Popular Community Devoted to Girls Do Porn”
Courthouse News Service - “Woman Says She Was Paid to Harass Does’ Attorneys in Porn Fraud Trial”
Vice (Motherboard) - “Girls Do Porn Producer Allegedly Made Fake Porn of Lawyers Suing Him”
NBC (San Diego) - “Owners of San Diego Porn Website Face Child Pornography Charges”
Courthouse News Service - “Woman Who Shot Porn Testifies She Knew Videos Would Go Online”
XBIZ - “GirlsDoPorn Defense Offers Witness Who Filmed Only for MILF Site”
NBC (San Diego) - “Trial Over Alleged San Diego Porn Scheme Comes To An End”
The San Diego Union-Tribune - “Brothers charged with obstructing GirlsDoPorn investigation”
Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP - “GirlsDoPorn.com Lawsuit - $13 Million Verdict”
Vice (Motherboard) - “Girls Do Porn Has to Pay Millions in Damages for Coercing Women Into Porn”
Los Angeles Times - “22 women win $13 million in suit against GirlsDoPorn videos”
BBC News - “GirlsDoPorn: Young women win legal battle over video con”
The Washington Post - “Judge awards $13 million to women who say they were tricked into pornography”
ArsTechnica - “Judge awards women $13 million in massive lawsuit against GirlsDoPorn”
Your Tango - “Meet Michael Pratt, GirlsDoPorn Owner Who’s Facing Class Action Lawsuit From 22 Women”
9News - “FBI hunting man over porn plot hatched in Australia”
NBC (San Diego) - “Another Woman Sues San Diego-Based Porn Website”
Vice (Motherboard) - “FBI Says Girls Do Porn Founder Is a Wanted Fugitive”
Vice (Motherboard) - “Pornhub Doesn’t Care”
Vice (Motherboard) - “Girls Do Porn Owners Pretended to Be Journalists to Harass Their Victims”
ArsTechnica - “‘Disgusting whores’: Document reveals GirlsDoPorn’s plan to harass victims”
Newcastle Herald - “FBI, lawyers hunt New Zealand pornographer”
Star News - “On the trail of a former Christchurch pornographer”
Reddit - “I am a victim of forced pornography by the company GirlsDoPorn” (AMA)