A 25-year-old woman joined a long list of alleged victims who claim owners of a San Diego-based porn website used lies and coercion to persuade them to appear in a pornographic video.
The woman is now the 23rd woman to sue the men behind the website “Girls Do Porn.”
Last week, as reported by NBC 7 Investigates, a San Diego Superior Court judge found website owner, Michael Pratt; videographer, Matthew Wolfe; and performer and recruiter Ruben Andre Garcia had lied and coerced 22 other women into appearing in the videos. The judge awarded the 22 women more than $12.7 million in damages.
In November 2019, U.S. prosecutors filed sex trafficking charges against the men. Both Garcia and Wolfe remain in federal custody as they await trial.
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Owner Michale Pratt is believed to have fled the country prior to the federal indictment, his whereabouts are currently unknown.
In the latest lawsuit, the 23rd plaintiff to file a civil case against the men and website says the men lied to her repeatedly in order to convince her to fly to San Diego and appear in a pornographic video.
The complaint alleges the men told many of the same lies that were at the center of a 2016 lawsuit from the 22 plaintiffs, as outlined in NBC 7’s previous stories.
According to the complaint, the woman known only as Jane Doe 23, was looking for a modeling job in November 2014 on the local Craigslist page in Salt Lake City when she found an ad from “Bubblegum Casting.” The ad allegedly offered $3,000 in cash for models between the ages of 18 and 23 years old.
The then 20-year-old clicked on the website and later submitted her information as well as photographs of her. A few hours later, the woman said a man named “Matt” called her. He told the woman that the modeling job was for a sex video but that the videos would only be released on DVD format in Australia. According to the complaint, the man also told the woman that only a brief clip of her video would be included in the video.
Jane Doe 23 decided against doing the video. Days later, she claims she received another call from Matt. He offered to give her the number of a woman who claimed to have shot a video for the modeling agency.
Reads the lawsuit: “When [Jane Doe 23] asked "Taylor" whether the videos were really only sold on DVD in Australia, "Taylor" explained that she had first filmed with Bubblegum Casting more than three years before and that she had filmed three videos but that she had never heard anything about the videos from anyone she knew and she did not believe the videos she filmed with Bubblegum Casting were posted on any website.”
The complaint alleges that Taylor was not a former model but instead was paid to lie to prospective models to convince them to agree.
As reported by NBC 7 Investigates, the so-called “reference girls” played an integral part in the men’s elaborate plan to get new models. LINK
Jane Doe 23 eventually agreed and flew to San Diego on November 28, 2014. She was taken to a hotel room where she says the men rushed her into signing the contract.
“The men placed their camera equipment in front of the hotel room door and were yelling at her as she was locked in a hotel room demanding that she hurry up and sign the contract,” says the woman’s attorney, Loren Washburn. “She had about two minutes to sign so they could begin filming. She became terrified and realized just what a vulnerable position she put herself in.”
Less than a month later a childhood friend from her small town in Utah sent her a screenshot of her having sex inside the hotel room that had been posted to a website called, “Imagepost.”
The screenshot was then followed with short clips of Jane Doe 23’s video on the conglomerate website, Pornhub.com.
The woman also alleges the men went a step forward, posting her social media profiles as well as pictures of her and her family on other adult websites.
“[The company] actively distributed screenshots and links of her video to friends and contacts that they discovered by viewing her social media pages,” reads the lawsuit. “In fact, within a few short weeks of the video being posted online, it had gone "viral" within the small, religious farming community where she was raised, leading to harassment, ostracization, and degrading interactions with her peers, friends, and family.”
Attorney Washburn says that his client wants the rights to her video so she can take action in removing it from the internet.
“Would she like to receive compensation for this, yes, but the primary interest that she has is getting control so that she can be the one who controls the distribution of that video,” said Washburn.
“Once that video is down the other invasions of privacy where they posted her social media information, pictures of her and her children and things like that will dissipate once the ability to watch the video is gone.”
Washburn said he hopes the lawsuit will “eliminate a lot of the harassment and stalking” that his client experienced.
An attorney for Girls Do Porn and its owner did not respond to a request for comment.
In two podcasts from NBC 7 Investigates called INSIGHT, journalists Dorian Hargrove, Tom Jones, Mari Payton, and Paul Krueger share some of the women’s stories who were featured in these videos and what they uncovered about the Girls Do Porn website, including the company’s ties to shell companies that were charged with laundering billions of dollars for a Mexican drug cartel and trafficking illegal weapons.
To listen to those podcasts, click here or hit ‘Play’ below.
