SAN DIEGO, CA/CHRISTCHURCH, NZ—There are a couple of new developments in the porn story that never seems to go away, even in the wake of Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright last week delivering a nearly $13 million verdict to 22 Jane Does who sued GirlsDoPorn, its owner Michael Pratt, employees Matthew Wolfe, Rubin 'Andre' Garcia and Valorie Moser, and a bunch of Pratt's shell companies.
For one thing, the FBI announced that it is indeed pursuing Pratt in his native New Zealand, having indicted the 36-year-old and his associates in early November on charges of "Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud or Coercion" and Conspiracy to Commit Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud, or Coercion" for having shot a hardcore scene with a 16-year-old girl, and while the feds have released no specific information about how their "Kiwi hunt" is going, reporter Sam Sherwood of the website Stuff.co.nz managed to track down Pratt's parents in Christchurch, Pratt's home town, but his stepdad told the site that the family had no idea where he was, and that they hadn't seen him since sometime in 2019.
"Just like any mum and dad would, of course, we're concerned," the stepfather said. "Even when Michael did come to us, he didn't say anything; it was only what we discovered in the papers when it broke that we realized what was going on and by then Mike had left.
"We had no idea what his business was," he added. "We just know that he was in some form of IT working in the States, that's all we know. He didn't call us and say, 'Hey, I'm doing this and I'm doing that and I'm doing the other.' We just didn't know until all this broke."
Since he isn't at his parents', Pratt must be somewhere else in the country's roughly 103K square miles—but they're not worried about him.
"I'm sure he will be [safe]," the stepdad said confidently. "Mike is Mike; I'm sure wherever he is, he will be looking after himself. We've got our own lives to get on with as well, so there's no point us worrying ourselves sick about something we don't know anything about."
Meanwhile, "Defendant Michael James Pratt is still a fugitive," an FBI spokeswoman said on Tuesday. "Anyone with information regarding Pratt's whereabouts should contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI."
Trouble is, the FBI isn't sure Pratt is still in New Zealand, though Associate U.S. Attorney Alexandra Foster said New Zealand police have been co-operating with both the FBI and the Justice Department, and that extradition would be sought if he were found to be in the country.
Pratt's attorneys are still pondering whether to raise objections to Judge Kevin Enright's tentative ruling in the civil case against Pratt and his companies, which ruling will become final within a week, or to file an appeal once it does become final. They're also considering what to do about the criminal charges against him.
"The tentative ruling does not affect the criminal case. The government's burden of proof in the criminal case is 'beyond a reasonable doubt', which is a much higher standard than in this civil lawsuit where the burden of proof is a mere preponderance of the evidence," Pratt's attorneys Daniel Kaplan and Aaron Sadock said. Both claimed not to know Pratt's current whereabouts.
In yet other GirlsDoPorn news, Fredrick and Efrain Jimenez, the two brothers (one a former GirlsDoPorn employee) who were discovered by police on Oct. 13—three days after Pratt was indicted—removing and destroying items such as portable air conditioning units from Pratt's Hidden Meadows home near San Diego, yesterday pled "not guilty" to charges of interfering with the Justice Department's criminal human trafficking case against Pratt.
A motion hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 13 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
