Pornhub sued for $52 million in damages by 40 victims of GirlsDoPorn sex-trafficking operation

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After the videos were posted on-line and widely available, many women contacted Moser to ask that their videos be taken down. Pratt, Wolfe and co-defendant Ruben Garcia all told Moser to block any calls from these women. Thomas Matthew Crooks, identified by authorities as the rally shooter, was killed at the scene. The video does not show the shooter who opened fire at former President Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally.

Ownership

Both sites offered paid subscriptions and featured videos of young adult women appearing in their first pornographic video. The websites generated millions of dollars in revenue and the videos were viewed millions of times. The lawsuit alleges Aylo continued to do business with GirlsDoPorn amid another lawsuit filed in San Diego by 22 women, who alleged they were coerced to film pornographic videos or led to believe their videos would only be distributed on DVDs to private owners, rather than proliferated online.

women sue PornHub’s parent company for allegedly hosting videos posted by San Diego’s GirlsDoPorn

Victims were recruited from throughout the United States and Canada. Once they arrived in San Diego, they were taken to local hotels or short term rental units where the videos were produced. The defendant and other co-conspirators continued to falsely assure the victims that the videos would not be posted online and that no one would find out. Garcia and other co-conspirators used aliases and companies with misleading names to ensure that the victims could not discover that they were behind GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys. Garcia also admitted that he recruited and paid other young women to act as “references” to falsely reassure reluctant victims that the videos would not be posted online and that there was “no way” anyone would find out.

The website operators had also assured models that their real names would never be linked to the videos. But they were uploaded to GirlsDoPorn’s subscription-based amateur porn website, and clips were shared on some of the world’s most popular free-to-view adult websites. They were told the videos were for a private collector or overseas DVDs, according to the 181-page judgement. Last week, a 23rd woman separately filed a lawsuit against Pratt and Girls Do Porn for damages similar to the 22 Jane Does from the previous trial.

• When she said she wanted to stop, Garcia and Wolfe made her feel like she was not free to leave.
• Judge Enright awarded the 22 women $9.48m in compensatory damages and $3.3m in punitive damages.
• After they approached Girls Do Porn to try to take the content down, the women say, they were subject to an extended harassment campaign, in which Girls Do Porn producers would contact their friends and family to ensure they saw the videos.

A makeup artist, a woman older than her, asked her what she was doing there. This is one of several moments she identifies, in retrospect, as when she felt that something might be wrong. He took photos of her, said he was texting them to his boss, and informed her that because she had scars on her chest and cellulite on her legs, her rate would be cut by several thousand dollars. “This defendant was a willing participant in a scheme that has traumatized many victims,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman. Further, Pratt instructed Moser not to tell the women the truth about their video’s distribution as she drove the young women to and from the video shoots.

He said Pratt and Wolfe were the « black sheep » of the porn industry. GirlsDoPorn had hundreds of models, according to court documents. Financial records show GirlsDoPorn along with several other spin-off porn sites, such as GirlsDoToys, made US$17 million over about a decade. Some women also alleged they were not allowed to leave the hotel rooms, or the exits were blocked by camera gear. One plaintiff told the court it sounded fun to be « treated like a celebrity for the day ».

• SAN DIEGO – Adult film performer and producer Ruben Andre Garcia pleaded guilty in federal court today to sex trafficking charges, admitting that he conspired with the owners of the adult websites GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys to fraudulently coerce young women to appear in sex videos.
• Some people are more sexually exuberant than others, notably those on the sexual fringe.
• The crime was utterly callous in nature and there is no excuse or justification for his conduct, which was driven purely by greed.
• And once the images hit the internet, many of the women were threatened, harassed and faced other serious repercussions.

It’s likely that a good deal of women’s porn watching can be explained by couples viewing it together. But could 5 percent of women account for 30 percent of the porn audience? A spokesperson for the San Diego Police Department said the department does have a report in its system involving Girls Do Porn, but the outcome of the report is unclear. The complaints led to a policy change last week when the site blocked the ability of users to download videos and limited user uploads. Holm said he thinks the porn boss is unlikely to plead guilty.

It presents claims from some of the women that Pornhub failed to take down videos after they were reported and the victims had pleaded with the company to remove them. The website and its operators were sued by 22 women featured in its videos, and a San Diego judge awarded the women nearly $13 million at the end of a civil trial. « Some of the women were pressured into signing documents without reviewing them and then threatened with legal action or outing if they failed to perform, » prosecutors allege. « Some were not permitted to leave the shooting locations until the videos were made. Some were forced to perform certain sex acts they had declined to do, or they would not be paid or allowed to leave. » Next, speaking to the women over the phone, the men would tell the women they were producing adult videos which were distributed only on DVD in New Zealand and Australia to small video stores or private collectors. The San Diego civil court found these ads allowed the defendants to attract « women who would not intentionally respond to a solicitation to appear in a pornographic video. »