The mastermind and owner of a porn website who exploited women on camera for profit and ended up on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list has been sentenced to federal prison.
Michael James Pratt, 42, who operated the website GirlsDoPorn, was sentenced in a San Diego federal courtroom Monday to 27 years in prison after pleading guilty in June to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; and committing sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion.
Forty women, all exploited by Pratt and his accomplices, testified for roughly five hours Monday before his sentencing.
According to federal prosecutors, the victims detailed how they were lured to San Diego hotel rooms with promises of well-paid modeling gigs but were instead coerced and forced to perform sex acts in front of cameras.
One woman testified that when she was a 21-year-old law student, she was forced to perform in a video that later appeared on the GirlsDoPorn website.
“I am not your victim. I’m your reckoning. … I am the girl who took you down,” the woman said in court, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “Look around! We are an army of survivors sharing our truth and we have won.”
Another victim was 19 years old at the time she was forced to appear in one of the videos. She worked as a dance teacher for children but was later fired after the video was posted online.
“You are evil. You are a predator. You are a rapist,” the woman said in court. “This is who you are. Your ego was too big to believe you’d ever get caught, but karma comes around. It is your turn now to suffer.”
The modeling advertisements on social media and Craigslist promised good pay, according to the victims, but it was only at the last minute that it became clear they were expected to perform sex acts on camera, according to prosecutors.
The exits out of the hotel rooms were often blocked, prosecutors said. Pratt and the other accomplices promised the videos would not be uploaded online. They then threatened the women with lawsuits, canceled air travel and exposing the videos online if they did not continue to perform.
Most of the victims were between the ages of 18 and 21 when they were forced to appear in the videos.
In court, the women shared the fallout they suffered over the years.
Some were disowned by their families, dropped out of school, and attempted suicide. Many of them suffered post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression, according to prosecutors. Their identities were shared widely online and they were stalked, harassed or threatened.
Some of the women testified that they had cosmetic surgery to change their appearance, changed their names and others discussed substance abuse and other long-lasting effects from being raped and recorded on video.
“For years I carried shame that never belonged to me,” one woman testified. “Today I will walk out of this courtroom an empowered woman. You will walk out in shackles.”
Pratt admitted in court to coming up with the idea for GirlsDoPorn, recruiting women to appear in the videos, sometimes transporting them to and from the site of a video shoot and sometimes manning the camera, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors say Pratt made more than $17 million in profits from 2012 to 2019 from GirlsDoPorn. But in mid-2019 he liquidated his assets and fled the country. He was named one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted and was arrested in late 2022 while living in Spain. He was extradited to San Diego in March 2024 and pleaded guilty.
