Michael James Pratt, the owner of pornographic websites GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys, has pleaded guilty to sex trafficking in a US court.

Pratt ran the websites, which lured and coerced young women into filming pornographic videos, from 2013 to 2019. Pratt and his accomplices lured women from across the US and Canada to San Diego, where the filming would take place in hotel rooms or short-term rental units.

The group would advertise via online sites including Craigslist. In some cases the advertisements would promote clothed modelling jobs. It would later transpire that the work involved performing in sex videos.

When women showed doubt about appearing in such videos, Pratt and his team would convince them that the videos they made would only be distributed to a small base of private collectors outside the US, and that no one who knew the women would ever see them. Pratt would also pay other young women known as ‘reference girls’ to seal the deal by helping to persuade the victims, on the expectation that another young woman’s testimony would be more convincing.

Victims were coerced

Once the victims arrived at the airport, they would be taken to the shoot, where Pratt and his accomplices would rush them into signing contracts without giving them copies.

The perpetrators would tell the women that the shooting sessions would be short, but in fact they would take hours. Pratt and his group would bully victims into having sex on camera, according to the FBI. Sometimes they would refuse to let them leave until they completed the shoots, pressing the women to perform acts that they had previously declined. Pratt and his associates would threaten to cancel flights home or publish what had already been filmed if victims did not comply.

The operation, which ran from 2013 to 2019, targeted hundreds of people. It would post the videos on its own sites, which were available in the US for a subscription fee. The operators would also post free versions of the videos on giant adult content site Pornhub to drum up business. These were often viewed millions of times. It generated over $17 million in revenue for Pratt, who originally conceived the operation. When contacted by one victim and asked to remove a video from the site, Pratt did not reply.

A fugitive from justice

Pratt played various parts in the operation, including recruiting victims, transporting them to the shooting sessions, and filming. He had already been charged in a US court in 2019 but fled to Spain, making it onto the FBI’s most wanted list. The FBI extradited him in 2022 and he pleaded not guilty in March 2024 to 19 felony counts, including sex trafficking (of both adults and minors), production of child pornography, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The pornography operation had already ordered to pay $18 million to victims in 2021 after 22 women sued it for damages. The FBI has also prosecuted other people involved in the sites. Matthew Wolfe, who moved from New Zealand to begin working for Pratt in 2011 and who run multiple parts of the business, received a 14-year sentence in March 2024. Cameraman Theodore Gyi was sentenced to four years in 2022. Adult film performer Ruben Andre Garcia received 20 years on June 2021. Office manager Valerie Moser will be sentenced on September 12.

Pratt will be sentenced on September 8 this year on two counts. He faces a minimum sentence of fifteen years for sex trafficking, and a maximum penalty of life in prison. Another count of sex trafficking conspiracy also carries a maximum life sentence.