SAN DIEGO — Attorneys for GirlsDoPorn and for 22 former models — only known as Jane Does — who shot for the site’s owner and employees, gave their closing arguments yesterday in the civil lawsuit alleging the company defrauded the women as to the nature and the distribution of the material.
As this was not a jury trial, the judge who heard the arguments, Kevin Enright, will now decide whether GirlsDoPorn’s owner Michael Pratt and his associates Matthew Wolfe and Ruben Andre “Dre” Garcia are guilty of coercion and of lying to the plaintiffs.
According to the local NBC affiliate, which has been reporting about the trial, “attorneys for the women asked Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright to award the alleged victims more than $22 million in punitive and emotional damages.”
“The 22 plaintiffs, all of whom were recruited when they were between the ages of 17 and 22 years old,” NBC 7 reported, “claim Pratt, Wolfe, Garcia and their employees told them a series of lies to persuade them to have sex on camera."
“In addition to the alleged lies, the plaintiffs claim the website’s owners paid other women to falsely reassure the prospective models that their performances would be sold only on DVDs and to private collectors in foreign countries. The women claim they were repeatedly reassured that none of the X-rated videos would be posted online.”
The three-month-plus-long civil trial was shaken up by the October revelation that the FBI had been investigating Pratt, Wolfe, Garcia and GirlsDoPorn office manager Valorie Moser, and that they were ready to charge them with criminal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy.
Garcia, Wolfe and Moser were arrested as the civil trial continued, and are currently awaiting trial. Michael Pratt is a fugitive from U.S. authorities and is presumed to be back in his native New Zealand.
For XBIZ’s extensive background article on the GirlsDoPorn case up until the uncovering of the criminal charges, click here.
“The men ran a lucrative business enterprise built on lies and the exploitation of vulnerable young women,” Jane Does’ attorney Ed Chapin told the court, adding that they were also “harassed, bullied, shamed and blackmailed” after the videos were circulated online.
“These women have suffered hellaciously [sic] from this dastardly scheme," Chapin elaborated, "the severity of which goes to the most private and most personal subject matter."
The GirlsDoPorn defense stuck to their original claim: that the women were consenting adults who signed a contract, and that the company was not in violation of that contract.
“The plaintiffs are adult women who have the responsibility to make adult decisions for themselves and they must be held responsible for their own decisions and actions,” Daniel Kaplan said for the defense.
“Adults make good decisions and adults make bad decisions,” Kaplan added. “These were bad decisions for these plaintiffs.”
“They don’t get a pass because they’re young,” Kaplan said, adding that the Jane Does refused “the reality of what they did, which was accepting large amounts of cash for having sex on camera.”
“These women knowingly and willingly participated in pornography, knowing full well of the risk that they face of being disclosed,” Kaplan continued. Pratt, Wolfe, Garcia and GirlsDoPorn “can’t be blamed for failing to map out for the women every ill effect that doing a pornographic film would have.”
Plaintiff’s attorney Chapin, however, asked the judge to award emotional distress damages ranging from $450,000 to $2 million per plaintiff, plus about 10 times that amount in punitive damages.
“This is a fraudulent scheme. It’s been honed by the use of fake modeling ads, fake websites, fake names […] and paid shills,” said Chapin, according to reporter Scott Graham, writing for Law.com vertical The Reporter.
“At best, these documents were incompetently drafted. At worst, they are intentionally deceptive,” Chapin argued. “Either way, I submit that they are not enforceable.”
Closing arguments are continuing today. Judge Enright has invited each of the parts to submit a “proposed statement of decision” by December 10.
For XBIZ's ongoing coverage of the GirlsDoPorn case, click here.