San Diego Court Awards $13 Million to 22 Women Defrauded by GirlsDoPorn
After trial: Plus $8 million in attorneys' fees.
Won by Thorsnes Bartolotta McGuire.
After a 99-day bench trial, San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin A. Enright awarded approximately $12.775 million in compensatory and punitive damages to 22 women who were deceived into appearing in online pornographic videos produced by GirlsDoPorn, with the court also ordering payment of $8 million in attorneys' fees.
What happened
Between roughly 2012 and 2018, the operators of GirlsDoPorn.com ran a recruitment scheme through fake modeling ads on Craigslist. Young women, some in their late teens or early twenties and many paying their way through college, were promised anonymous, clothed photo shoots. Once on set, they faced a different situation: adult film production, with operators assuring them that any footage would be sold only on DVDs distributed overseas and would never appear online in the United States.
The promises were false. The videos were posted on the site and shared within victims' own social circles, causing lasting professional and psychological harm to each of the 22 women. The defendants, including Matthew Wolfe, Ruben Garcia, and Michael J. Pratt, earned revenue from the very distribution they had pledged to prevent.
Twenty-two women, proceeding as Jane Does, filed suit in San Diego Superior Court. John O'Brien of Thorsnes Bartolotta McGuire served as co-counsel alongside Brian Holm and attorneys from Sanford Heisler Sharp. The litigation was extensive. By the time the bench trial opened before Judge Kevin A. Enright in August 2019, the plaintiffs' team had litigated through more than 100 motions, including repeated attempts to disqualify their counsel, and assembled over 3,000 exhibits and 57 witnesses across 99 trial days.
On January 2, 2020, Judge Enright issued his ruling. He awarded approximately $12.775 million in damages, comprising $9.475 million in compensatory damages and $3.3 million in punitive damages, widely reported in press accounts as roughly $13 million. The court also awarded $8 million in attorneys' fees and $800,000 in costs. Beyond the money, the judge ordered the defendants to transfer ownership of the videos to the plaintiffs and to remove all content from their websites, then take steps to eliminate it from third-party platforms.
The civil case had a parallel criminal track. While the civil trial was underway, federal authorities indicted Pratt, Wolfe, and Garcia on sex-trafficking charges. All three ultimately pleaded guilty and received lengthy federal prison sentences, with Pratt sentenced to 27 years. As of early 2022, the 22 plaintiffs had not yet collected the civil judgment, with Pratt having fled to New Zealand before his criminal arrest. O'Brien subsequently filed separate federal suit against Pornhub's parent company, MindGeek, alleging the platform facilitated the trafficking by hosting and monetizing the videos.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Rolling Stone: 'Girls Do Porn Lawsuit Ends With $13 Million Ruling for Plaintiffs' (Jan. 2020)·Archived copy
- 2.NBC 7 San Diego: 'Judge Awards Millions to Plaintiffs in Fraudulent Porn Scheme' (Jan. 2020)·Archived copy
- 3.Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight: GirlsDoPorn.com Lawsuit case page·Archived copy
- 4.VICE: Girls Do Porn Has to Pay Millions in Damages for Coercing Women Into Porn (January 3, 2020)
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