SAN DIEGO — San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright filed today a "(Proposed) Statement of Decision" on the civil case against the owner and staff of the GirlsDoPorn website brought forth by 22 models who shot for them. The statement proposes awarding the plaintiffs over $12 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The 22 models, known as "Jane Does," claimed "fraud, concealment, false promise, misappropriation of likeness and violation of Business and Professions Code," against GirlsDoPorn (and associated entities), owner Michael Pratt, videographer Matthew Wolfe and on-camera performer Andre "Dre" Garcia.
The civil proceeding was not a jury trial, and Judge Enright was the only person to decide on the claims, after listening to several weeks' worth of testimony.
"The Court finds Plaintiffs have proven that Defendants use fraudulent practices to facilitate […] [recruitment of] a constant stream of new models," wrote the judge.
Moreover, Judge Enright agreed with the 22 Jane Does that the GirlsDoPorn team "take considerable, calculated steps to falsely assure prospective models that their videos will never be posted online, come to light in the United States or be seen by anyone who might know them. Defendants' assurances of privacy and security are reinforced by paid 'references' — women hired who are, or pose as, previous models and (in accordance with a script) provide new recruits with false comfort that the experience is safe and enjoyable and that the videos have never appeared online or been discovered by anyone in the models' lives."
This is consistent with the testimony of several former models and some former GirlsDoPorn associates.
The judge proposed awarding $9.475 million in compensatory damages and $3.3 million in punitive damages to the Jane Does, more than half of the $22 million their attorneys had requested last month
Stigmatizing Language
Judge Enright's (Proposed) Statement of Decision also includes some curious, and sometimes stigmatizing, language showing how he interpreted what he heard through the hearings.
Judge Enright mentions as "fact" that the GirlsDoPorn defendants "are aware that the models recruited for GirlsDoPorn do not intend to pursue a career in adult entertainment," but then adds that "the women are mostly students with careers ahead of them who have only even considered Defendants' solicitations to film a pornographic video due to some immediate and pressing financial need." It is unclear if Judge Enright believes this to be true of all models who were shot for the site, or if he is talking about the 22 plaintiffs specifically.
Several GirlsDoPorn models — like Emily Willis, Whitney Westgate, Sophia Leone, Scarlet Red, Layla London, Alexis Adams and others — have gone on to professional adult industry careers.
The Statement also uses stigmatizing language implying that "students with careers ahead of them" are intrinsically different from people who chose to pursue an adult career, and that the only reason the former would be sex workers was due to "immediate and pressing financial need."
To read Judge Enright's entire statement, the PDF is available via the Courthouse News site.
For XBIZ's ongoing coverage of the GirlsDoPorn case, click here.