In a courtroom packed with survivors on Tuesday, more than four years after he was charged, the founder of the San Diego-based GirlsDoPorn website, Michael Pratt, appeared in U.S. Federal Court, in San Diego.
Pratt, who spent years on the lam after being charged in October 2019 and fleeing the U.S., according to prosecutors, was eventually placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. He was arrested in Spain in December 2022.
On Tuesday, Pratt pleaded not guilty to charges including sex trafficking, production of child pornography and sex trafficking of a minor.
GirlsDoPorn Case
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“When he was in Spain, that was really hard, but now that he's here, and we got to see him first-hand, yeah, there is an end in sight," one victim, who NBC 7 is only identifying as Mariah, said Tuesday. "And we will get to close this chapter soon.”
Prior to the criminal prosecution, the website and its operators were sued by 22 women featured in its videos, and a San Diego judge awarded the women nearly $13 million at the end of a civil trial. Pratt allegedly fled the country after the civil trial got underway.
As the owner and operator of the now-defunct adult film website GirlsDoPorn, Pratt coerced multiple women, and at least one underage girl, into sexual activities they had not signed up for.
As the prosecutors put it in a news release issued Tuesday:
"Pratt is accused of recruiting the victims from throughout the United States and Canada using internet advertisements for clothed modeling jobs. Even after the victims were told the gig involved an adult video-shoot, Pratt and his co-defendants convinced the women that their videos would be provided solely to private collectors on DVD in foreign countries, that they would remain anonymous, and that the videos would not be posted on the internet — assurances that Pratt and his co-defendants knew to be false.
"Most of the video shoots took place in San Diego — at local hotels and short-term rental units. Although the women were promised that the video shoots would be brief, they often took hours. Once the video productions began, some women were not permitted to leave the shooting locations until the videos were completed; some were threatened with lawsuits or canceled flights home if they did not complete the videos; and others were allegedly forced to perform certain sex acts, which they had earlier declined to do."
In court on Tuesday, Mariah told the judge how she was lured into her experience for GirlsDoPorn:
“I was 19. I had left a really abusive marriage, and I was not on good terms with my family,” Mariah testified, adding later, “so when I left that marriage, that's when I found myself looking for work because I didn't have the support from my family and I didn't get a lot from the divorce. And so I looked online for modeling work.”
Federal prosecutors also say some of the women were sexually assaulted
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, the videos were posted on sites like PornHub and GirlsDoPorn, netting Pratt and co-conspirator Michael Wolfe, who was sentenced Tuesday for his role, as much as $17 million.
Several women described during his sentencing hearing how links to their videos were sent en masse to family members, friends and co-workers, sabotaging their employment prospects and ruining familial relationships to this day. One woman said she's faced consistent harassment since her video was posted nine years ago, leading her to move and change her name. The woman said she's about to graduate from college, but said that though "I'm proud to be the first in my family to go to college, when I graduate, it's not going to be my name that's called."
Another woman said, "The fear of being recognized in public never goes away," while another said the continuous messages and threats she receives from anonymous people online are "constant reminders of the worst time in my life."
Prior to imposing a 14-year sentence, U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino told Wolfe, "You played an essential role in a sex trafficking conspiracy" and noted his knowledge that false representations were being made to the women.
Others involved in the case have received prison sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years.
“For a long time, I thought that I just made a stupid decision," Mariah said Tuesday. "I did not realize that I was sex trafficked."
Now, though, Mariah feels that "if I can do anything to encourage others to speak up or just to let others know that there are other ways that men are trafficking people … it's really important that we keep our children safe.”
Prosecutors will argue Thursday, when Pratt is due back in court for a bail hearing, that he is both a flight risk and a danger to the community. He could face a life sentence if convicted.
