GirlsDoPorn: Michael Pratt still missing as PornHub reaches settlement with victims

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But legal repercussions from those pre-purge days — including federal monitoring and an ever-growing number of lawsuits — are still rippling through Pornhub and its network of user-generated porn sites. It’s been four years since a wave of news accounts revealed that the site was infested with non-consensual videos of rape, sexual assault, child porn, and footage from hidden cameras. These women were recruited via Craigslist modeling ads and then directed to fill out contact forms on benign-sounding websites like BeginModeling.com and CaliforniaModeling.com. They were then contacted by Garcia, who revealed applicants were actually being recruited to film a 30-minute porn video that they would be paid several thousand dollars to film. But after the women were flown to San Diego from their various home states to make the videos in hotels, the defendants allegedly lied, saying the films would be distributed on DVDs and only to private clients overseas, not on the internet. Nored is accused in the criminal case of acting as a “reference woman” who would lie to the victims by saying she had performed in similar videos that were never posted online.

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I jumped out of my seat,” said one victim about learning of Pratt’s presence in the courthouse Tuesday. Weeks after they returned home, the videos were released in full on Pratt’s subscription site, and as clips on PornHub and other popular free porn platforms. “Garcia and Pratt bought me a birthday cake to include in the filming process so he could let everyone know that I had just turned 18,” she said.

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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. In a statement during his hearing, Gyi apologized to the victims and told them, “I respect you and I commend you. You were the brave ones. I was the coward. I was a liar. I was a deceiver. I was a piece of garbage and for that, I eternally apologize.” Another woman said an anonymous person sent a video she appeared in to her grandmother.

GirlsDoPorn Videographer Draws Federal Prison Sentence

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. 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. “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.” 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.

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.” WIRED is not naming the deepfake abuse website due to its role in spreading abusive content or the celebrities featured in the videos. The website is the largest website of its kind—hosting tens of thousands of videos and receiving millions of visitors.

• Late last year, Pornhub’s parent company agreed to pay more than $1.8 million to resolve a criminal probe alleging it profited from sex trafficking through its hosting of GirlsDoPorn videos.
• The lawsuit was filed against Pornhub and Pornhub owner MindGeek in US District Court for the Southern District of California.
• He remains at large and was recently placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List.
• Explore research-packed articles, videos, and podcast—all detailing porn’s harms to individuals, relationships, and society.

When she flew to San Diego in October 2013 with her friend who found a modeling ad on Craigslist, Jane Doe 7 believed she’d be paid $2,000 to do a nude photo shoot. Pauline Repard covers legal affairs, crime and public safety news in San Diego County. She joined The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1988, and since then has reported police, fire and court news in every corner of the county.

It was a moment hundreds of women had been waiting for — and one many feared would never come. 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. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California recognizes the outstanding efforts of the FBI in San Diego; the FBI Legal Attaché in Spain; the U.S.

• One woman stood before Garcia with sutures on her wrist from a recent attempt to end her life, flashing it to the judge as she spoke.
• Sometimes responses and replies take time, and we ask you to be courteous and patient to allow the expert to type answers to you and also to others.
• Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in a brief court document filed Friday indicating a stipulated dismissal of the case brought by the plaintiffs, identified as Jane Does 1 through 50.
• A hearing has been set for Thursday to discuss whether the 41-year-old should be released on bail.

In January, the site began requiring these IDs for “performers” in all new videos. “We have no indication she even knows this is being filmed,” Mickelwait said of this video, which has been on the site for two years. “You can hear the woman yelling to stop because it hurts,” she said recently of the video, which includes a tag showing it’s been on the site five years. First, Jane Doe 7 found out the photo shoot was actually a video shoot only when she was picked up at the airport by Matthew Wolfe, a videographer working for the porn website GirlsDoPorn.

More than a dozen of these lawsuits were filed in the past month alone, and many more may be on the way. “We are in the process of filing cases on behalf of approximately 250 victims, with more reaching out weekly,” Bowe told BI. “Laila Mickelwait is a superstar advocate and activist who has single-handedly led the charge against Pornhub and its facilitation and monetization of child sex trafficking,” he tweeted last week.