SAN DIEGO, Calif. — The sentencing hearing for Matthew Wolfe, former second-in-command for the shuttered GirlsDoPorn website, has reportedly been postponed until May.
Wolfe was due to be sentenced in a San Diego courtroom this week, having pleaded guilty last July to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.
Wolfe admitted to his role in a “broad scheme that recruited numerous women under false pretenses for pornography,” the San Diego Union Tribune reported at the time.
Court documents show that the sentencing was postponed until May 25 because Wolfe “needs more time to finish his paperwork to address the complicated issues involved in the matter” and has also had a change in attorneys, according to New Zealand newspaper The Herald.
Wolfe’s responsibilities included running the day-to-day operations of the GirlsDoPorn family of websites, managing finances, marketing content and serving as cameraman for a period. He was the main business associate of GDP owner Michael Pratt. Both are New Zealand nationals.
Pratt escaped the U.S. before federal charges against the company and its employees were unsealed in 2019, and was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list from 2021 until he was captured in Madrid, Spain last December,as XBIZ reported.
As of last month, Pratt was being held in Madrid by Spanish authorities pending extradition to the U.S.
The Criminal Case Against GirlsDoPorn
The FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives page devoted to Pratt summarized the criminal case against him and GirlsDoPorn as follows: “From approximately 2012 to 2019, Michael James Pratt and others allegedly participated in a conspiracy to recruit young adult and minor women to engage in commercial sex acts by force, fraud and coercion. Pratt and a co-conspirator owned and operated a pornography production company and online pornography websites, ‘GirlsDoPorn’ and ‘GirlsDoToys.’ Pratt and his co-conspirators allegedly recruited young women from around the United States and Canada by posting false internet advertisements for clothed modeling jobs, which the victims later discovered were pornographic productions.”
Pratt, the posting continued, “also allegedly paid other young women working at his and his co-conspirators’ direction to act as references and provide false assurances to the women that, if they filmed a pornographic video, the video would not be posted online. Some women were allegedly not permitted to leave the shooting locations until the videos were completed, others were allegedly forced to perform sex acts they had declined to perform, and some women were allegedly sexually assaulted.”
Wolfe admitted as part of his plea that “he was aware that the names and social media accounts for some women were posted on another website controlled by Pratt, resulting in severe harassment of the women by internet trolls,” the San Diego Union Tribune reported, referring to the website Porn Wikileaks. “Still, Wolfe and others continued to assure recruits that their videos, and identities, would remain secret.”
Wolfe faces a sentence of up to life in prison, but as part of his plea agreement, prosecutors have recommended his sentence should not exceed 12.5 years.
For XBIZ's ongoing coverage of the GirlsDoPorn case, click here.
