SAN DIEGO—Back in June of 2016, Courthouse News journalist Don DeBenedictis described the lawsuit pitting (at that time) 16 Jane Does against GirlsDoPorn.com and some of its principals as "a lawsuit straight out of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," and nothing that's happened since appears to have disproved that analysis. Indeed, since the First Amended Complaint was filed in San Diego Superior Court on December 14, 2016, an additional six Jane Does have joined the suit as Plaintiffs, some from as far away as Alberta, Canada, and Dade County, Florida.
And now, more than three years later, the case is coming to trial, with opening statements before the Hon. Kevin Enright scheduled for today, as well as hearings on procedural motions.
“We are eager to get this trial underway and concluded so the young women who were victimized by GirlsDoPorn.com can secure the compensation and vindication they need to begin healing and rebuilding their lives,” said Ed Chapin, the California Managing Partner of Sanford Heisler Sharp and one of the lawyers on the plaintiffs’ legal team. “This long, drawn-out ordeal has taken a terrible toll on many of them.”
“Defendants have spent a fortune doing everything they can do to delay this trial, even filing a frivolous bankruptcy petition for which they were sanctioned $110,000 by the bankruptcy court,” said Brian M. Holm, another attorney involved in the proceedings. “After three years of hard-fought litigation, our clients are thankful to finally get their day in court.”
According to the complaint, the most recent version of which was filed on November 8, 2017, when the six new Jane Does were added, GirlsDoPorn.com, its CEO Michael J. Pratt, sales rep/actor Andre Garcia, and videographer Matthew Wolfe, as well as several related corporations were charged with several counts of fraud, including fraudulent concealment and fraudulent transfer, as well as intentional misrepresentation, false promise and breach of contract.
Simply put, GirlsDoPorn.com, through its representatives, allegedly advertised on Craigslist and other websites for young women, and those who contacted the company in response to the ads were phoned or emailed with offers of "thousands of dollars for adult film work."
"When the young women ask the Defendants where they will distribute the video, The Defendants assure them that they will not post the video online (or cause it to be so posted), they will not distribute the video in the United States (or cause it to be so distributed), and they will keep each woman anonymous," reads the beginning of Paragraph 39 of the First Amended Complaint. "The Defendants represent the videos will be on DVDs overseas and for private use."
The women who agreed to take part in the adult scenes were booked into rooms at upscale San Diego hotels, and if they didn't live in Southern California, GirlsDoPorn paid their airfare to San Diego as well. Once the women have arrived, production equipment is smuggled into the hotel, and the women are given documents to sign "often under duress, coercion, and/or while distracting or rushing them," according to the complaint, and "while continuing to orally misrepresent their intent for the video's eventual distribution."
According to the Courthouse News article, some of the women were "confined in the hotel room and forced to film and have sex for many hours"; were "sometimes forced to have sex when not filming—to appease the 'actor,' most often Garcia"; and were often gypped out of their promised payments.
The company denies this, stating that the women each signed model releases "permitting unfettered use of the video" and which did not include any limits on distribution.
Indeed; rather than distributing the hardcore videos only overseas, GirlsDoPorn in fact posted the scenes to its own website and "on a multiple of free pornography websites—in part to advertise www.girlsdoporn.com with the images and likenesses of the young women." And according to the complaint, this practice has led to dire consequences for the Plaintiffs, including clinical depression and even suicide attempts.
For example, as AVN noted in a 2013 article, Melissa King, who had been crowned Miss Delaware Teen USA the previous year, was forced to resign and give up her title after GirlsDoPorn allegedly posted a hardcore video of the brunette and allowed several adult tube sites to make it available.
According to the complaint, when the Plaintiffs who shot for the company discovered that their scenes had appeared in several places on the internet, they attempted to contact the company's principals, but found that phone numbers had been changed, that company principals had used false names, and if the women were able to get through to someone at the company offices, they were hung up on or their calls were blocked. Perhaps worse, the company allegedly released the women's real names online, "usually on blogs followed by 'fans' and [GirlsDoPorn] subscribers," allowing third parties to "stalk, harass, bully and blackmail the young women and their families." (The company denies this.)
"Because of The Defendants, some of these young women lose relationships with friends, significant others, and family. Some lose or change jobs, and some are forced to leave their school," the complaint charges, proceeding to describe in detail the effects of these "outings" on the individual Plaintiffs.
The Plaintiffs are currently seeking more than $22 million from the company and each of the individual Defendants.
