It was a moment that hundreds of women had been waiting for, and a moment that many feared would never come.
Five years after he fled the country and minutes before his former right-hand man was to be sentenced in federal court, authorities announced that the alleged mastermind of the GirlsDoPorn sex trafficking ring had arrived in San Diego in federal custody.
Michael James Pratt disappeared in the summer of 2019, before he was indicted on federal conspiracy and sex trafficking charges stemming from what prosecutors said was a decade-long scheme to trick hundreds of teenagers and young women into appearing in adult videos on the website he was using. Owned.
Pratt had been in hiding for three years and was listed as an FBI Most Wanted Fugitive by the time he was arrested in Spain in December of 2022. Five of his co-defendants have pleaded guilty to their crimes, each pointing to Pratt as being responsible for the crime. Gang leader. The majority of his co-conspirators began their sentences in prison.
On March 19, it was photographer Matthew Isaac Wolfe's turn. Dozens of victims gathered at the Carter Cape Courthouse in San Diego to speak at the sentencing hearing when they were told that Pratt was in federal custody.
“We were all in the U.S. Attorney's Office,” said Brian Holm, the victims' longtime civil attorney. “Everyone burst into loud cheers. They have been waiting for that day.”
For many, the extradition of the porn industry boss marks “the beginning of the end” of a years-long ordeal, said John O'Brien, a colleague of Holm's.
“Customers were clapping, thrilled, and relieved,” O'Brien said. “There was an overwhelming sense of closure.”
But although Pratt is now back on US soil, his case has yet to be resolved.
Other defendants have taken plea deals, but Pratt — who faces decades in federal prison if convicted — could choose to take the case to trial after pleading not guilty. His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.
According to federal indictments and extensive victim testimony, the “girls” on the site — most of whom had barely graduated high school when they were brought to San Diego for the shoot — were lured from Craigslist and through social media with promises of paid modeling gigs. , only to be told at the last minute that they would be expected to film explicit sex scenes instead.
“I can remember being very worried when I told him I was only 17,” a woman known as “Victim K” told the court during a hearing for the gang’s main actor, Ruben Andre Garcia, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. . in 2020 and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2021. “But he wasn’t crazy or anxious. Instead he was excited and eager to get started.
“Garcia and Pratt bought me a birthday cake to include in the shoot so everyone could know I had just turned 18,” she said.
After arriving in San Diego, the women said they were often pushed into cramped hotel rooms with blocked exits, coaxed into signing huge contracts that they were not allowed to read, and repeatedly stressed that the videos would only appear on DVDs in foreign countries, and would not be released. Published online or released in the United States.
Many said they were pressured to perform sexual acts that they had previously refused to do. Some said they were told they would not be allowed to leave, or their flights home would be cancelled, if they did not complete filming.
Those who spoke during Garcia's sentencing told harrowing stories of assault, coercion and brutality during the hours-long filming sessions, when many cried, bled, vomited, screamed in pain or begged for filming to stop — scenes that were carefully edited out of the final film. video.
Victim H said: “I asked to stop several times. The blood vessels in my eyes burst because of the pain I was feeling.”
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 streaming platforms.
At the same time, Pratt and his team were stalking women on another site he controlled, exposing their names, email, home addresses, and even biometric details including height and weight to the legions of trolls who linked to him on 4chan and similar forums — the effort's lawyers. Their goal was to silence victims and drive traffic to the subscription site.
Victim H said: “The first time I watched pornography was a video of myself, of my body, which was sent to me hundreds of times a day from friends, family and strangers. I lived in constant fear of…thousands of people.” “Men who said they would find me, rape me and kill me in my home.”
Others explained how they lost their jobs, were fired, and became estranged from their friends and family. He left a lot of schools. Some attempted suicide. Those who joined the civil lawsuit in 2016 saw new waves of attacks. This case caught the attention of the Public Prosecution when it was brought to court in 2019, leading to the start of a criminal investigation.
“It caught my attention how widespread and obsessive some of these people are,” said Holm, the victims' advocate. “I get harassed just for acting.”
Pratt is charged with multiple counts of conspiracy and sex trafficking, as well as one count of producing child pornography in connection with the scheme from which he and his team made millions, court records show.
Thanks to a team of amateur investigators, Pratt finally faces justice in the United States, Holm said.
“He was arrested because me and three former government cybersecurity guys went to Spain and got his ID from Mail Boxes Etc. to do our own work,” the lawyer said. “We're tired of waiting for him to be found.”
Holm said he believed it was unlikely the porn boss would plead guilty.
“If I were him, I would roll the dice for a crazy juror,” he said.
He and others worry that women disowned and cast out by their fathers and brothers might fare little better with a jury of strangers.
“We focused on this issue, and very religious people were saying: 'I hate both sides, put them all in prison,'” he said. “You can always hope to get a crazy, victim-blaming person on the jury who sticks out.”
