A San Diego federal judge has ordered Michael James Pratt, the imprisoned owner of the now-defunct San Diego-based website GirlsDoPorn, to pay $75.6 million in restitution to more than 100 women whom Pratt and his co-conspirators tricked and coerced into appearing in pornographic videos as part of a yearslong trafficking scheme.<\/p>\n
Pratt, 43, was sentenced in September to 27 years in federal prison<\/a> after pleading guilty to one count of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and one count of conspiracy to commit the same crime. Prison records showed he is currently serving his term at a medium-security facility in Victorville and is scheduled for release in 2045.<\/p>\n A New Zealand citizen who made a home in San Diego, Pratt admitted in his plea agreement that he and those who worked for him recruited young women online from across the country as models. When they arrived in San Diego, the women were pressured to have sex on camera. They were told the videos would go to private DVD collections overseas, but instead they were widely disseminated on the GirlsDoPorn network of sites and free pornography sites.<\/p>\n Pratt admitted that between 2012 and 2019, he conspired to traffic 15 victims<\/a>, though authorities have said that\u2019s a tiny fraction of the actual victims of the conspiracy. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sasha Foster said last year that 505 women had shot GirlsDoPorn videos. She said that while not all were victims, the \u201cgreat bulk\u201d of the women interviewed by FBI agents said they\u2019d been deceived by Pratt and did not know their videos \u201cwould be plastered all over the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n The restitution order signed last week by U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino requires Pratt to pay restitution to 106 women.<\/p>\n \u201c(The) restitution order is a powerful acknowledgment of the lifelong harm inflicted on these women,\u201d San Diego-area U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement. \u201cWhile no amount of money would fully remedy what they endured, this order holds Pratt financially accountable for some part of the harm that he caused these victims.\u201d<\/p>\n An attorney representing Pratt in an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to comment Monday. Though Pratt waived many of his appeal rights when he pleaded guilty, he is able to appeal his sentence, which was five years longer than what prosecutors recommended and nearly three years longer than the high end of his federal sentencing guideline range.<\/p>\n While Pratt admitted in the plea agreement that GirlsDoPorn and its related websites netted him millions of dollars in revenue, its unclear how much of that money is left, where it might be or how much of it the victims will ever see. Foster, the prosecutor, acknowledged as much after last year\u2019s sentencing.<\/p>\n \u201cI expect that Mr. Pratt is never going to be able to make these women whole (financially),\u201d Foster told reporters after the hearing.<\/p>\n Prosecutors have said Pratt liquidated his assets in 2019 when he fled the U.S. in the midst of a civil trial in San Diego Superior Court. That case eventually ended with a judge awarding nearly $13 million to the 22 women<\/a> who had sued him and the others involved with the GirlsDoPorn site. Pratt, meanwhile, remained an international fugitive until his 2022 capture in Spain<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to the judge\u2019s order, $16.9 million of the total restitution correlates to the gross income generated by the GirlsDoPorn scheme, while another $58.6 million is for what prosecutors described as the victims\u2019 specific losses. The order spells out the exact amount of money that each of the 106 women are owed. While the majority are owed less than $500,000, one victim is owed more than $6.6 million while another is owed just $440.<\/p>\n Authorities were able to seize from Pratt just a small percentage of what he owes his victims, according to court records, which show that investigators seized $2,400 in cash from Pratt and about 4.35 Bitcoins from three different virtual wallets. As of Monday, the value of those Bitcoins was about $298,000, according to the cryptocurrency trading website Coinbase.<\/p>\n Pratt has forfeited those assets to the government, according to court records.<\/p>\n Also part of the restitution order is a clause stipulating \u201cPratt has no right to use, publish, or otherwise exploit GirlsDoPorn \u2026 images, likenesses, or videos.\u201d The same clause gives each of the victims the legal rights to their images and videos \u2014 rights they can theoretically use to try to remove those images when they\u2019re reposted online.<\/p>\n After Pratt\u2019s sentencing, Foster and several of the victims said the copyrights issue was an important and overlooked part of his plea agreement and sentence.<\/p>\n Many of the victims have sought monetary compensation through other means, including civil lawsuits against free porn sites such as PornHub that hosted GirlsDoPorn video clips. More than 120 women have sued PornHub\u2019s parent company<\/a> in San Diego federal court, alleging the site illegally published sex-trafficking videos. PornHub\u2019s parent company settled the first of those suits under terms that were not disclosed while the second suit remains active.<\/p>\n