SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The owner of defunct website GirlsDoPorn.com has been extradited to San Diego and made his first federal court appearance on sex trafficking charges Tuesday, the same day his former business partner was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Michael James Pratt, who was arrested in Spain in late 2022, appeared in court more than four years after San Diego federal prosecutors charged him with sex trafficking for allegedly coercing and tricking numerous women to appear in pornographic videos under false pretenses.
Prosecutors say the website's operators led women to believe the videos they appeared in would be distributed only to private customers living outside of the country, rather than proliferated online, despite always intending to post the videos on the internet.
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 and was at one time on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list.
He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday and is due back in court later this week for a hearing regarding his detention status.
Several of his co-defendants have already pleaded guilty and most have been sentenced to prison.
That includes Matthew Isaac Wolfe, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison shortly before Pratt made his first appearance.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Wolfe was directly involved in lying to the victims about the online nature of the videos and directed other GirlsDoPorn employees to do the same. His duties included overseeing the company's finances, marketing and personally filming over 100 of GirlsDoPorn's videos, a prosecutor said in court.
Wolfe's sentencing hearing included statements from 15 women who detailed how their lives were upended by the unexpected online posting of the videos, with the ensuing harassment and abuse driving some to suicidal thoughts and substance abuse.
Several women described 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 now en route 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."
Wolfe, who pleaded guilty in the summer of 2022, made a statement on his own behalf in court, saying that what happened to the women "is disgusting to me and not what I want for anybody. I hope today brings us closer to closure for everyone."
Defense attorney Jeremy Warren argued in court that GirlsDoPorn's modus operandi of deceiving women was "entirely (Michael) Pratt's scheme" and that his client's role in the website's operation was a lesser role, largely revolving around his expertise in computers.
Warren said Wolfe and Pratt were friends in elementary school in their native New Zealand. Pratt masterminded GirlsDoPorn and later reached out to Wolfe for help, according to Warren, who also said that Pratt profited immensely from the website, in contrast to Wolfe.
However, several of the women who spoke Tuesday said Wolfe was far more involved than his attorney described, with one saying it was "disrespectful to describe him as just a computer guy."
Another said she emailed Wolfe directly to request he take her video down, "but he refused."
Prior to imposing the 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 prosecuted include porn actor Ruben Andre Garcia, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Sammartino to 20 years in prison. Videographer Theodore Gyi was sentenced to four years in prison, while administrative assistant Valorie Moser has also pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing later this year.
Alexander Brian Foster pleaded guilty to creating a video meant to harass the women who sued GirlsDoPorn and was sentenced to just over one year in prison. Another defendant, Douglas Wiederhold, was charged last year with sex trafficking in connection with the site.
