San Diego Judge Hands 27-Year Sentence to GirlsDoPorn Founder

The Long Road to Justice for Victims of GirlsDoPorn

For over a decade, Michael James Pratt orchestrated a dark network of exploitation through his website, GirlsDoPorn. He lured women into San Diego hotel rooms under false pretenses, tricking and coercing them into filming explicit content. Despite numerous pleas from victims to remove the videos, Pratt ignored their requests and eventually fled the U.S. during a civil trial in 2019.

On Monday, more than three dozen of Pratt’s victims finally had the opportunity to confront him as U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino sentenced him to 27 years in federal prison on one charge of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion and one count of conspiracy to commit the same crime.

The courtroom was filled with emotional testimony from the victims, many of whom described the long-term trauma they endured. Some spoke of struggling with addiction, suicidal thoughts, and the devastation of having their personal videos shared among family, friends, and colleagues. Others highlighted how they emerged stronger despite the years of suffering.

“We meet again,” one victim told Pratt. “But this time it’s you who cannot leave.”

Pratt, a 42-year-old New Zealand citizen, admitted in a plea agreement earlier this year that between 2012 and 2019, he conspired to traffic 15 victims. However, authorities believe the actual number of victims is much higher, with some estimates reaching over 450. More than 120 women have been involved in civil litigation against GirlsDoPorn, its related websites, and free pornography sites such as PornHub, which hosted GirlsDoPorn clips and generated tens of millions of views.

While some victims expressed hope for Pratt’s redemption, most voiced years of anger and demanded the maximum sentence. Judge Sammartino’s 27-year sentence exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations and the high end of the federal sentencing guideline range. A federal probation officer had recommended a 30-year sentence.

The victims described how Pratt destroyed their lives but also how they overcame the trauma. One woman told Pratt, “I won. I’m not your victim, I’m your reckoning.” She recounted how she and nearly two dozen other women sued him in Superior Court after demanding the removal of her video from online platforms.

Pratt’s victims, in court filings and previous hearings, detailed the relentless torment they faced after their identities were exposed online. Many had links or images from the videos emailed to family members, bosses, and college administrators. Some lost careers, friendships, and had to change their names or appearances. Others turned to drugs and alcohol to cope and even contemplated or attempted suicide.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sasha Foster told the judge, “The reality is that he lied to these women knowing full well he was going to blow up their lives.”

Despite the pain, the victims also spoke about their strength and resilience. They formed a community of survivors, supporting each other and seeking justice. “We are an army of survivors,” said the woman who sent Pratt the 2015 email and later sued him in state court. “And we have won.”

In his plea agreement, Pratt admitted that he and those who worked for him recruited young women online from across the country as models. When they arrived in San Diego, they were pressured to have sex on camera. The women were told the videos would go to private DVD collections overseas, but instead, they were widely disseminated on the GirlsDoPorn network and free pornography sites.

One woman, identified as Victim 1 in the plea agreement, was 18 when Pratt admitted he rushed her through a contract and did not provide her with a copy. He paid her $2,000 and then ignored her pleas to take the video down when it was posted online nine months later.

She later graduated from Princeton University, now works in the tech industry, and has become a specialist in helping people send takedown notices to websites.

Pratt admitted in the plea agreement that GirlsDoPorn and its related websites netted him millions of dollars in revenue. Prosecutors said he liquidated his assets in 2019 and fled the U.S. At the time, he was in the midst of a civil trial in which a San Diego Superior Court judge eventually awarded nearly $13 million to 22 women who had sued him and several others involved with the GirlsDoPorn site.

Later that year, federal prosecutors unsealed a sprawling indictment with Pratt as the lead defendant. As each of his co-conspirators eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced, Pratt remained an international fugitive.

He was captured in 2022 in Spain just months after the FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, then extradited to the U.S. last year on the same day Judge Sammartino sentenced his childhood friend and co-defendant Matthew Isaac Wolfe to 14 years in prison.

Wolfe admitted to running the day-to-day operations of GirlsDoPorn, managing the finances, marketing the content, and serving as cameraman for about 100 videos. Judge Sammartino also sentenced adult-film actor Ruben Andre Garcia to 20 years in prison — a term that Garcia is appealing — and Theodore “Teddy” Gyi, a cameraman who filmed about 120 of the videos, to four years in prison. Valorie Moser, a former bookkeeper, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.

Pratt’s attorney argued in court that his only criminal conduct was misrepresenting to women that the videos would not be posted online. “Had he disclosed that the videos would be posted on the Girls Do Porn website, there would have been no civil case and no criminal case,” his court-appointed defense attorney, Brian White, wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Many of the women who spoke Monday addressed that claim directly, saying they were tricked and coerced from the start and that the deceit went far beyond one lie about where the video would be distributed.

The GirlsDoPorn case has spawned several related criminal cases and civil lawsuits. Alexander Brian Foster, who filmed about 100 GirlsDoPorn videos, was sentenced to one year in federal prison for creating a retaliation video meant to harass the women and lawyers who filed the civil suit in Superior Court.

Douglas “James” Wiederhold, who has been linked in civil litigation to a GirlsDoPorn-style “mom” porn site for women over 30 years old, is awaiting a December sentencing after pleading guilty last year to sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion. He admitted to appearing as the male actor in 71 GirlsDoPorn videos and helping convince some women that their videos would not be posted online.

The civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions have also entangled popular free porn sites such as Pornhub. In 2023, 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.

More than 120 women featured in GirlsDoPorn videos have sued Pornhub’s parent company in two lawsuits in San Diego federal court that alleged Pornhub illegally published sex-trafficking videos. Pornhub’s parent company settled the first of those suits, which involved about 60 women. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The second lawsuit involving 62 women remains active but has been stayed pending this week’s criminal sentencings of Pratt and Moser.