Choose a Girl

It means we are now aware that things aren’t always as they seem when it comes to online pornography. Indeed, justice is redeeming, it is necessary, and it is deeply healing for those who have been abused, but justice has not been fully served yet for these victims and their perpetrators. 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. GirlsDoPorn filmed more than 100 women, many who had their lives destroyed by Garcia and his cohorts. The women were lied to, Garcia recruited some when they were still underage, and all of them were lured to California through an intricate web of deception. Prosecutors will argue Thursday, when Pratt is due back in court for a bail hearing, that he is both a flight risk and a danger to the community.

Sex Trafficking Survivor Speaks Out on Infamous ‘GirlsDoPorn’ Case, Reveals Horrors of Pornography Industry

• Following this announcement, a video was uploaded to the BangBros YouTube channel, showing an unknown person standing over a pile of hard drives – containing the information compiled on PornWikiLeaks – along with a bottle of lighter fluid and a lighter.
• When that failed to prevent the inevitable, Pratt decided to file for bankruptcy, which he hoped would sink the lawsuit by moving it to a separate court and jurisdiction altogether.
• An adult-film actor tied to a San Diego company that authorities said duped and coerced women into making pornography was sentenced in federal court Monday to 20 years in prison.
• For patients who do see a gynecologist regularly, appointments are typically brief, with barely enough time for a woman to refill her birth control prescription and ask if she’s up to date with her HPV vaccine shots, much less inquire about the quality of her eggs or check her hormone levels.
• The women were awarded $9.45 million in compensatory damages, and $3.3 million in punitive damages.
• In their 2014 article “Criminalizing Revenge Porn,” law professors Danielle Citron and Mary Anne Franks discuss reports that survivors completely withdraw from online life.

Porn actor and producer Ruben Andre Garcia was previously sentenced to 20 years in prison, and two others have pleaded guilty and await sentencing next year. Althaus reportedly lost her Miss Teen Colorado runner-up crown after the video surfaced. Wolfe admitted to posting those videos on the U.S. website GirlsDoPorn for public viewing. The complaint further alleges that Pratt took Althaus’ cellphone during the filming and only gave it back to her afterward. The plaintiffs are represented by Brian M. Holm, Joseph S. Green, Nathan G. Batterman of Holm Law Group, P.C. There were times, Jane Doe admitted, she had to be hospitalized because she couldn’t trust herself.

L.A. dentist accused of sexually abusing patients, targeting immigrants and low-income women

SAN DIEGO – David Warren of Las Vegas was sentenced in federal court today to 10 years in prison for coercing three women to engage in prostitution and transporting them… Victims who consumed alcohol or smoked marijuana were directed to make a recorded statement saying that they were not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol, even though they had just smoked marijuana or drank alcohol. Mislabeling abusive media as porn makes it seem like “this is something that either platforms or performers are complicit with,” said Mike Stabile, director of public policy at the Free Speech Coalition, the adult industry trade group. When she was sixteen, the doctor in her small town of two thousand people prescribed the Pill because of her painful periods—but didn’t bother to tell her its primary purpose was to help prevent pregnancy. Then, the first time she had sex, on the night of her high school graduation, she became pregnant, though they used a condom.

• Another defendant, Alexander Brian Foster, pleaded guilty to creating a video meant to harass several women who sued GirlsDoPorn and was sentenced to just over one year in prison.
• Women cited in the court documents said they were forced to sign contracts that did not give the full scope of what the site intended to do with the videos.
• The tweet doesn’t name Pratt, but says that the man in the video is a New Zealander on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list; Pratt made it to the top 10 in September, with a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
• Garcia told these women that the videos would be published only on DVDs and sold overseas.

The man whom multiple young woman alleged coerced them into amateur porn shoots is on the lam from federal law enforcement, and all that running has only made cops want to dress him down even more, so to speak. Boden, who has been in the adult industry for 15 years and is helping spearhead consent and transparency initiatives, pointed out that legitimate producers and companies do not use false and misleading practices to recruit women like Girls Do Porn allegedly did. She told BuzzFeed News she hopes this case helps weed out other shady and “criminal” operations. Obtaining ownership rights under the court ruling is such a big deal because it’s nearly impossible to force sites like Pornhub to remove content once it is uploaded, attorneys and experts said, even if it had been created and published without a person’s consent. The decision comes about four years after the women first took action against the San Diego–based adult film site, which creates and advertises videos featuring young “amateur” teens and college students who are usually about 18 to 20 years old.

“This defendant lured one victim after another with fake modeling ads, false promises and deceptive front companies, ultimately devolving to threats to coerce these women into making sex videos,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman. “Even when victims told Garcia how the scheme had devastated their lives, he showed no regard for their well-being. The crime was utterly callous in nature and there is no excuse or justification for his conduct, which was driven purely by greed. Hopefully today’s sentence will offer them a sense of justice.” Grossman praised prosecutors Joseph Green, Alexandra Foster and Sabrina Feve; FBI Special Agents; and the U.S. Once home, unbeknownst to the women, Pratt and his co-defendants would post clips of the adult videos on other pornographic sites like Pornhub to lure users to GirlsDoPorn for full-length versions of the films, court records show.

At some point we realize we’ve never quite recovered from the grisly pictures imposed on us in health class all those years ago. Superficial, often poorly taught sex ed and a pervasive cultural shh leave many people in the dark, missing out on or avoiding candid conversations about sex and all it entails. I recalled a conversation I’d had with a woman named Cynthia, a young mother of three who grew up in rural southwest Virginia. Cynthia was raised in a Pentecostal family; James, her husband, is a strict Catholic who doesn’t believe in birth control. While less drastic than Paley’s, hurdles have persisted for generations of women since.

Half of them said the widespread proliferation of their abuse videos convinced them death was a better option than living in perpetual pain and humiliation. 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.” Many said they were pressured into performing sex acts they’d previously refused to do. Some said they were told they would not be allowed to leave, or their flights home would be canceled, if they did not complete filming. 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…

Garcia used young women as recruiters, because victims “were more likely to believe other young women.” The references were paid a fixed fee for every victim they attempted to recruit and additional compensation for victims who agreed to film a video. 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. When victims expressed hesitation, Garcia directed other young women to contact the victims and falsely reassure them that the videos would not be posted online and that none of the victims’ friends, families, colleagues or classmates would find out.

After roughly two years of slow and sustained success, Michael Pratt decided to recruit his old friend, Matthew Wolfe, to help him work on the site in 2011. Wolfe decided to move to the U.S. and live near Pratt in San Diego, California. While Pratt handled a lot more of the executive decisions, Wolfe became involved in the day-to-day operations of GirlsDoPorn, filming the shoots in high-end hotel rooms in Southern California (in fact, it was Wolfe you heard interviewing the woman at the beginning of this episode). As if to add insult to injury, this video was released alongside a couple of snide comments from the owners of the site of the original adult film. The producers claim that Megan had only been paid $1,500 for her original appearance, and had asked to come back for a second, but had been rejected by the producers, who critiqued her performance as “frigid at best.” As a foster child, she didn’t have the same resources that other kids her age had.