Victims of GirlsDoPorn’s Sex Trafficking Operation Now Own Their Videos

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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. Those who tried to back out once it was clear what was involved were threatened, plied with alcohol and told they would have to pay for their own way home from San Diego. After applying for the modelling work, they received phone calls from other women who have been described as a key part of the business – “reference women” who pitched the idea of making porn and assured them that it would never go online.

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Brian Holm, one of the attorneys who has fought for the victims for more than six years, said Garcia’s sentencing was a life-changing moment for the women. He and his partners used threats of lawsuits, canceled flights home and, in some cases, physically blocked the door so the young women could not escape. Garcia’s victims were coerced, defrauded and forced to participate in recorded sex acts, some of which were violent to the point of drawing blood.

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When attorneys finished with closing arguments, the judge took the matter under submission on Dec. 13. Chapin said Enright is giving attorneys additional time to file any objections to his rulings. San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright, who presided over a four-month-long bench trial, decided in favor of all 22 plaintiffs and against 13 defendants. Ultimately, though, the wild success of those viral GirlsDoPorn Internet videos is what led to the site team’s downfall.

• Pratt, who was the owner of the website GirlsDoPorn, was charged in October 2019 in the Southern District of California with sex trafficking crimes in connection with a scheme to deceive and coerce young women to appear in pornographic videos.
• 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.
• So the footage from that horrific night — which was uploaded to the platform without her consent — was downloaded millions of times.
• Besides Pornhub, the GirlsDoPorn videos were also hosted on other MindGeek properties referred to as “Tubesites” in the lawsuit.
• 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.
• Jane Doe is hoping to expose the dark underbelly of the pornography industry and desires to play a role in “ruining” pornography for others the way her trauma has ruined it for her little brother.

From 2012 to 2019, the DOJ says, the creators of GirlsDoPorn worked by recruiting young women, using ads posted on Craigslist, for what they claimed were clothed modeling photo shoots. When the women responded, they were told the ads were for pornographic videos, and they were pressured into taking part, according to various lawsuits and survivor testimonies. The owner and three employees of GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys, coerced victims into sexual acts when they were made to believe they were applying for modeling jobs, according to the Department of Justice.

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. When she had recorded the video, back in March, she hadn’t been dating anyone. 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.

• Finally, in March this year, the alleged GirlsDoPorn mastermind, Michael Pratt, was extradited from Spain to the US to face charges linked to the operation.
• Half of them said the widespread proliferation of their abuse videos convinced them death was a better option than living in perpetual pain and humiliation.
• In this one, arousal comes first and then the desire for sex and the going after it.
• Garcia was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, and Wolfe awaits sentencing.
• Multiple women also claimed that Garcia had given them STDs, which he had failed to inform them about.

But the clips would always direct viewers to his website, GirlsDoPorn.com, where they could unlock the full video for a monthly subscription. 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. The videos persisted with repeat reuploads to other tube sites like PornHub, a problem that has historically tormented anyone who’s needed to get their videos removed. In October, 50 victims of GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys won a settlement with MindGeek, owner of the PornHub and tube site empire; the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Holding businesses accountable motivates platforms to assign a registered DMCA agent with the Copyright Office to facilitate takedowns, Johnstone added, and copyright empowers the holder to subpoena a platform for information about the alleged infringer. Copyright in a settlement agreement is “standard practice” for attorneys representing victims of nonconsensual pornography, Erica Johnstone, co-founder of the nonprofit legal privacy advocacy group Without My Consent, told Gizmodo. The San Diego superior court heard evidence from the women, Jane Does 1 to 22, in a case their lawyers say has “exposed the rotten underbelly of the San Diego sex industry”. “Unfortunately, GirlsDoPorn had posted the first video of Plaintiff on MindGeek’s network, and the video became wildly successful.

If cum or pre-cum gets near your vulva or into your vagina — and you’re worried about pregnancy — you can still prevent pregnancy with  emergency contraception (the morning-after pill). Emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy up to five days after unprotected sex. Use these resources to help navigate conversations with loved ones, quit a porn habit, protect kids online, and more. GWI is looking for college sophomores enrolled in or transferring to an accredited four-year U.S. or U.S.-style institutions seeking to explore their options in the investment management industry through either the Summer Intensive Program or Online Intensive Program. If we could correct this one misunderstanding, there would be far fewer women saying that something was wrong with them,” Mintz says. For starters, people’s desire for each other is at its highest early in the relationship during a phase called limerance.

At least, that’s how it was for decades, until the internet began to change everything. 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. 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.