SAN DIEGO (CN) – Subscription-based porn website GirlsDoPorn continues to recruit amateur models via Craigslist without disclosing its videos are published online despite an ongoing civil trial over recruitment practices, an employee testified Wednesday.
Matthew Wolfe, a business associate who’s filmed over 100 pornographic videos for GirlsDoPorn since moving from New Zealand to San Diego in 2011 to work for his childhood friend Michael Pratt’s company, said he currently uploads new videos to the website.
But the current contract amateur models sign doesn’t disclose the videos get posted online, including to PornHub, one of the most visited websites in the world, even though that’s why the company was sued several years ago in state court.
When asked by Brian Holm, an attorney for Jane Does 1-22, whether the current contracts signed by models reference www.GirlsDoPorn.com and other websites owned by Pratt, Wolfe said “No, I don’t believe so.”
Wolfe also confirmed contracts presented to models after the June 2016 lawsuit – on claims the women were wooed by a bait-and-switch recruitment scheme where they were told they’d be filming videos for DVDs to be sold overseas but were instead published online – do not mention websites whatsoever.
“That’s where almost all of pornography that’s produced goes,” Wolfe said. He confirmed the videos shot by GirlsDoPorn were only posted online, never distributed on DVD.
“When the videos are filmed it could go on one of a couple of sites,” Wolfe said.
GirlsDoPorn actor Andre Garcia is still recruiting models as recently as last week, Wolfe added.
Wolfe said he was put in charge of the model contracts after the lawsuit was filed but they aren’t currently well organized and are “stacking up on a desk” in his office.
He suggested GirlsDoPorn did not directly reference its website in contracts presented to models in order to protect employees from “online trolls” who had harassed Wolfe and others and posted their personal information online.
Wolfe said if models asked where their videos would be posted, he’d only tell them it would be published online but wouldn’t provide more details.
“I’d tell them it’s a website online. Most people know porn goes online,” Wolfe said before noting the women “didn’t ask” where their videos would be published.
But when pressed by Holm about whether Wolfe ever informed models about “running lists” of the names and personal information of GirlsDoPorn models posted on the website PornWikiLeaks, Wolfe said he didn’t because “I was there for filming and camera work. I was not involved in casting.”
He also disputed GirlsDoPorn had anything to do with the women’s names and phone numbers that were released.
Wolfe’s testimony stands in contrast to what 22 women claim regarding representations made to them before they agreed to appear in the porn videos.
Last week, Jane Doe 16 testified: “I felt shocked. I felt very confused. I never expected it to go online,” after she filmed in 2014 and was told the video would go straight to DVD and be sold in New Zealand.
In an email exhibit shown in court, Doe wrote to the person who recruited her to appear in the film: “When I filmed with your company, I was under the impression it would be paid for only, not posted on free websites.”
Doe said she had never heard of GirlsDoPorn until she saw her video posted on the free website PornHub.
The contracts signed by the women never mention GirlsDoPorn, referring instead to Pratt’s company BLL Media Inc., or other entities he owned.
Wolfe said he spoke to Pratt on the phone yesterday, but it’s unknown where Pratt is located and if he will testify in the trial. Pratt is still operating the business from outside San Diego, Wolfe said.
Plaintiff’s counsel has suggested Pratt flew to New Zealand from Tijuana, Mexico this summer ahead of the trial.
The trial was expected to last several more weeks in San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright’s courtroom.
GirlsDoPorn is represented by Aaron Sadock and Daniel Kaplan.
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