SAN DIEGO — The bankruptcy trustee for Domi Publications, which operated MomPOV.com and was formerly co-owned by fugitive GirlsDoPorn owner Michael Pratt, has filed a legal malpractice suit against two attorneys for failing to reach a settlement with the 22 Jane Doe former models suing GDP in a civil trial.
Domi Publications was one of several entities, U.S. and foreign, once belonging wholly or in part to Pratt, according to filings in the parallel criminal trial where the GDP owner and associates were charged with human trafficking and sexual assault of some of the site’s models.
Until the civil trial, Domi was co-owned by Pratt and Doug Wiederhold, a webmaster and former male talent whom Pratt found in 2007 on Craigslist soon after emigrating from his native New Zealand to the U.S. to set up the GDP operation.
From 2007 to 2009, according to the Jane Does’ filing, “Wiederhold and Pratt traveled from city to city filming videos of amateur girls in hotel rooms across the United States.”
Wiederhold was replaced as the main GDP talent in 2011 by Ruben Andre Garcia, currently serving a 20-year sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking charges in 2020. A year before, Wiederhold and Pratt had created a spinoff MILF website called MomPOV, which continued operating from Las Vegas long after GDP went dark after the criminal charges were unveiled in 2019.
A day before the civil trial began in 2018, “Wiederhold and Pratt entered into a buyout agreement where Wiederhold bought Pratt’s 50% interest in Domi for $96,000,” Courthouse News reported yesterday.
Domi reportedly earned over $2 million in annual gross revenue in 2018 and 2019, but continued to be embroiled in the litigation affecting Pratt and GDP.
In 2020, after San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright awarded the Jane Does a total judgment of $21 million — including $13 million in damages, the rights to their videos, $8 million in attorneys' fees and $781,000 in costs — Domi filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
But the Jane Does have not yet been able to collect on the damages and are named as creditors in Domi's bankruptcy, filed in Nevada.
A Tangled Web of Companies and Lawsuits
According to yesterday’s report, Lenard Schwartzer, Chapter 7 trustee for Domi Publications, sued the company’s former attorneys, George Rikos and Clyde DeWitt, for legal malpractice over the events around Pratt’s divestment from the company in 2018.
The bankruptcy trustee, Courthouse News reported, now claims that “Rikos and DeWitt could have saved Domi from the $21 million bill had they settled with the women when given multiple opportunities to do so before and during the trial in fall 2019.”
According to Schwartzer’s 15-page complaint, “Rikos and DeWitt’s utter failure to fulfill their duties of care and act in Domi’s best interest resulted in a judgment against Domi for $21,396,478.16. In turn, Rikos and DeWitt’s failure to fulfill their duties caused Domi to lose its entire business, which had generated millions in profits since its inception.”
The bankruptcy trustee now alleges that as the civil trial was about to start, the Jane Does offered “to dismiss Domi from their case against GDP and waive costs and fees” and also “moved to sever their claims against Domi from the GDP case, which would have saved Domi immense legal fees and costs.”
Schwartzer claims that Rikos “declined the offer and opted to go to trial,” even though the models’ attorneys were willing to settle each individual Doe’s claim for $749 — one dollar less than the statutory minimum penalty automatically granted to a plaintiff who prevails on a misappropriation of likeness claim in California.”
Courthouse News tallied the total to settle all the Jane Does’ claims at $16,478.
Malpractice Allegations Over a Botched Settlement
The lawsuit also alleges that Wiederhold wanted to settle but Pratt did not, and Rikos and DeWitt “took no action to attempt to resolve the deadlock” between the partners, essentially “forcing Domi to remain in very costly and risky litigation.”
However, after Pratt sold his 50% to Wiederhold on the eve of the trial, the lawsuit alleges, “as part of the contract, Pratt advised it was his ‘desire’ for Wiederhold to reject the compromise offer by the Does and instead negotiate a ‘walk away’ in the first month of the trial. The ‘walk away’ agreement would have been filed under seal as opposed to the compromise offer by the Does.”
“Neither Rikos nor DeWitt took any action to negotiate a walk away agreement with the Jane Does once trial commenced,” Courthouse News reports about the lawsuit allegations. “Rikos later served an offer to settle if the Jane Does paid Domi and offered to have judgment issued in Domi’s favor. They declined.”
For XBIZ's ongoing coverage of the GDP case, click here.
