SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Michael Pratt, owner of the pornography website, “GirlsDoPorn,” changed his plea to felony charges for his role in a large-scale sex trafficking ring on Thursday in federal court after reaching a deal with prosecutors.
The agreement came in the final hour before the 42-year-old, who had previously been one of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted fugitives, was set to stand trial on more than a dozen felony counts tied to a scheme that involved coercing young women into filming pornographic videos.
Under the plea agreement, Pratt admitted guilt to two felony counts — one for sex trafficking and one for conspiracy to commit sex trafficking — in exchange for the remaining charges to be dismissed and a reduced prison term. He is set to be sentenced in September of this year.
Pratt was one of five people connected to the GirlsDoPorn plot charged by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California in 2019, but had fled to Spain before he could be taken into custody. He was arrested in Spain in 2022 and was extradited to San Diego in 2024.
Prosecutors alleged Pratt and his conspirators used force and fraud to recruit hundreds of young women from the U.S. and Canada between 2012 and 2019 to film pornographic videos in San Diego that were later uploaded online without their knowledge or consent.
Many of these women were in their late teens, although at least one victim was a minor at the time, according to prosecutors. Most had also never been in pornographic videos before and were looking for normal modeling jobs when they were unknowingly hired by GirlsDoPorn.
To bring these women on, prosecutors said the defendants often made false representations about their purpose to convince them to participate.
This included promises that their video would never be released or their identity would remain concealed. They also intentionally obfuscated that the women were signing up for GirlsDoPorn by using fake company names like “Bubblegum Casting” or “BLL Media,” per prosecutors.
About a year into the scheme, one of Pratt’s co-defendants, Ruben Andre Garcia, the male model who engaged in the filmed sex acts, began bringing in what they called “reference girls” to give false testimonials to back up these misstatements.
Once signed on, the women were flown out to San Diego for filming, which usually took place in a short-term rental or hotel.
While filming, Pratt and his conspirators continued to make these deceptive promises. However, if a woman wanted to stop, they would turn to making threats, saying they would sue her, cancel her flight home from San Diego or post the video online, according to prosecutors.
Most of the videos created as part of the conspiracy were posted to free pornography websites, prosecutors said, garnering millions of views. Some videos were also uploaded behind a paywall that generated millions of dollars in revenue for Pratt and his conspirators.
Three of Pratt’s co-defendants — Garcia, Matthew Wolfe and Theodore Gyi — have already been sentenced for their role in the scheme and are currently behind bars. Valorie Moser, Pratt’s other co-defendant, is similarly scheduled to be sentenced in September.
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