GirlsDoPorn employee who created own related website indicted in San Diego on sex trafficking charges

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Althaus has been unable to maintain a job or healthy relationships and “has been repeatedly followed and harassed,” according to the lawsuit. Each of the 22 plaintiffs was tentatively awarded up to a half million dollars each. While no amount of money will undo what these women have endured for months and years, this is a massive win following a gruelling case that’s lasted more than three years.

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• Wolfe was sentenced in October 2022 for admitting to coercing prospective models into filming videos for Girls Do Porn, then lying to them saying the videos would not be distributed in the United States, says the Attorney’s Office.
• Some accused one of the men of raping them before or after the on-camera shoot.
• At the time, the defendants were embroiled in a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court filed by 22 women who were victimized by the conspiracy.

The defendants represented that the videos would be sold exclusively on DVDs overseas for private use and provided other women as references, who lied to the victims, claiming they had filmed videos and no one had ever found out. The civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions have also entangled popular free porn sites such as PornHub. 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.

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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. Once the videos were posted online many victims contacted Garcia and his co-conspirators seeking to get their videos taken off the websites. As a part of the conspiracy, Garcia and others would at times coerce victims into completing the videos once they were underway. Garcia and other co-conspirators threatened to sue the victims, cancel flights home, and post the videos online, if the victims did not complete the sex videos. Hotel room doors were at times blocked by camera and recording equipment, and the victims felt powerless and unable to leave.

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In response to the lawsuit and reporting that was done on the subject, GirlsDoPorn’s videos have been removed from many websites that host streaming adult videos. The latest lawsuit alleges that “MindGeek also knew of the significant harassment and trauma GirlsDoPorn’s victims were enduring by its continued publication of the victims’ videos” but that the company “simply did not care.” A few years ago, in 2015 and earlier, hundreds of women were allegedly lured to San Diego for what many of them didn’t know were actually film shoots for GirlsDoPorn. They were fed alcohol and drugs, coerced into signing dense contracts with incomprehensible legal jargon, and subsequently raped on camera—for 7 painful hours, in some cases. Shortly after being filmed, in each of these women’s cases, the footage reportedly ended up on major porn sites accompanied by their real names and personal information.

• Jane Doe 15 said she was 18-years-old and attending college in 2016 when she found an ad on Craigslist for a modeling gig.
• The suit also alleges that BCSO Detective Patrick Delp failed to interview Wallin or his roommate in the five weeks he investigated the child abuse allegations.
• The state is seeking the forfeiture of the four defendants’ property upon conviction, including property used to commit the alleged crimes and property obtained as a result of the crimes.
• However, the videos were later distributed publicly via sites including Pornhub according to US Attorneys.
• SAN DIEGO – Matthew Isaac Wolfe was sentenced in federal court today to 14 years in prison for his role in a conspiracy with Michael Pratt, owner of the website GirlsDoPorn, and others, to deceive and coerce young women into appearing in pornographic videos.

Prosecutors recommended roughly the same prison term for Garcia, the actor, when he was sentenced in June 2021 after pleading guilty to a sex-trafficking conspiracy. A generational gap in understanding online platforms and digital literacy is one reason the young women and girls surveyed and interviewed showed little trust in adults and existing mechanisms to root out abusers and perpetrators. About half of the young women and girls surveyed in Africa (55%) reported seeing or receiving unwanted sexual images. In the US, Arkansas and Utah were among the first to sign bills focusing on children’s online safety in 2023 and dozens of states have proposed or enacted legislation to regulate social media platforms in recent years. New York passed a children’s act against addictive social media feeds in June, and a Senate bill for children’s online safety is currently in the works.

The conspiracy included recruiting the victims from throughout the United States and Canada using internet advertisements for clothed modeling jobs. In truth, the videos were exclusively marketed and distributed on the internet. Wolfe told co-defendant Theodore Gyi, the cameraman on hundreds of GirlsDoPorn video shoots, that if asked, he should lie to the women and tell them the videos would not be posted on the internet. Most of the hours-long shoots happened in hotel rooms and at short-term rental units in San Diego, court records show. Once the video productions began, court documents say that some women weren’t allowed to leave the shooting locations until the adult films were completed. If the women tried to leave, the group would either force the girls to “perform certain sex acts” or threaten them with lawsuits and flight cancelations, the documents continued.

But the lawsuit alleged that Pratt and Wiederhold couldn’t agree what decision to make, and the attorneys failed to convince Pratt to settle. According to a civil lawsuit, Wiederhold that same year “significantly decreased his involvement with GirlsDoPorn and began devoting most of his time to developing content” for the other site. That same time frame is when prosecutors allege Wiederhold committed the crimes for which he was indicted last month. According to civil lawsuits and bankruptcy proceedings related to the GirlsDoPorn cases, Wiederhold began working for Pratt and GirlsDoPorn in 2007. The GirlsDoPorn website featured mostly college-aged women, but in 2010 Wiederhold began preparing for the launch of a similar “mom” porn site that featured women over 30 years of age. Pratt, a New Zealand native who was added to the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list months before his arrest, is believed to still be in Spanish custody awaiting extradition to San Diego, where he’s under indictment on charges of sex trafficking and production of child sexual abuse material.