Woman who recruited victims for GirlsDoPorn sentenced to prison

SAN DIEGO (CN) — A woman who helped recruit girls into an illegal pornography and sex trafficking operation by posing as a trusted intermediary was sentenced to prison Friday morning.

U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino, a George W. Bush appointee, sentenced Valorie Moser to two years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Moser pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking in 2021 in relation to her role in the GirlsDoPorn sex trafficking scandal, which involved hundreds of women and girls around the country.

Moser was employed by GirlsDoPorn to manage the books and recruit young women from the internet to participate in the videos under false pretenses. She also provided a friendly female face to the young women who were often nervous about traveling to San Diego to shoot what they thought were only modeling photos.

“Valorie Moser was the one who picked me up and drove me to the hotel where I was trafficked,” an anonymous victim wrote in an impact statement read to the court by U.S. Attorney Alexandra Foster. “Her role was to make me feel more comfortable because women trust other women. She reassured me on the way to the hotel that everything would be OK."

“Later that night, they opened my hotel room door, and this nightmare began,” the victim continued. “She wasn’t just a bookkeeper, she was a willing participant. She deserves to be sentenced to jail.”

The videos of the victims were spread widely on pornography sites across the internet, which prosecutors said Moser was well aware of.

An emotional Moser accepted her responsibility for her role in the sex trafficking. Her attorney asked the court not to sentence her to prison due to a mental health condition and because of her cooperation with the government investigation into GirlsDoPorn, which operated between 2007 and 2019.

With Moser weeping and unable to read a statement to the victims, her attorney, Anthony Columbo, addressed the victims on her behalf.

“I want you to know that I hurt you,” she wrote. “I want you to know that I listened and I learned so much. I feel disgusted, shameful and foolish … I failed and I am truly sorry.”

When provided with the victim impact statements, Moser wrote that she read through all of them.

“I forced myself to take it all in and absorb it. It made me physically sick. I had to listen to them in small chunks, but I listened to them all.”

Columbo argued that Moser acted almost as a whistleblower who cooperated with investigators, despite her boss’ attempts to silence her with money and intimidation.

“I do believe part of this success to the women can be attributed to my testimony,” Moser wrote.

Sammartino — though appearing sympathetic to Moser — was not persuaded.

“You provided them assurances and comfort,” she told Moser directly. “Much of that comfort was false assurances, and assurances you knew to be false. The court does believe you were involved in the fraud and took part in the fraud.”

Moser was not detained after the hearing but will have to report to the Bureau of Prisons by Jan. 30, 2026.

Sammartino’s decision was welcomed by Mariah Rief, a victim of the GirlsDoPorn sex-trafficking ring and an advocate against revenge porn and doxxing.

“I agree that she needed jail time, so I was really grateful to Judge Sammartino for calling that out,” Rief told Courthouse News after the sentencing. She said Sammartino had been “an absolute champion for us and this entire case.”

Rief gave Moser her business card so that she could talk to her after the sentencing.

“If I’m not in jail, sure,” Moser said.

Moser’s emotional testimony was a departure from the other men who have been sentenced in the case so far, Rief said, but it didn’t change her feelings.

“I think the majority of victims would say that there’s no amount of time that would be justice,” Rief said. “We have life sentences, and until there’s a stronger policy change, we will forever have life sentences, because our content has been viewed billions of times, downloaded thousands of times, spread across hundreds of websites, and is across multiple foreign websites.”

Rief said she is advocating for a federal policy that centralizes the flagging and removal of nonconsensual intimate images posted online.

Moser was partially tasked with recruiting the young women for the videos via a fake modeling website, according to the complaint filed in 2019. After they submitted applications to the website, Moser would then convince them to fly to San Diego.

Moser’s boss, Michael Pratt, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison in September, instructed her to recruit his victims by making them an “offer of a price that was high enough to get the model on a plane" — without the intention of paying them in full.

Once they arrived, Pratt and his associates used various methods of coercion to get the victims to participate in the pornographic videos. The women were often told that the videos would not be published online, were for a private collector or would only be available on DVD.

More than 570 women were victimized, according to the FBI, which was an investigating agency.

“Today’s sentence confirms Pratt’s co-conspirators will be held accountable for their roles in his scheme,” an FBI spokesperson said in a statement to Courthouse News.

Moser’s sentencing is one of the last in the case. Douglas Wiederhold, another actor in the illegal pornography ring, will be sentenced in January. Wiederhold pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking last year.

Sammartino sentenced GirlsDoPorn actor and producer Ruben Andre Garcia to 20 years in prison on sex-trafficking charges in 2020. She sentenced Pratt’s business partner and GirlsDoPorn videographer, Michael Wolfe, to 14 years in prison last year. Sammartino also sentenced Theodore Wilfred Gyi, who shot over 100 videos for GirlsDoPorn and its offshoot, GirlsDoToys, to four years in prison in 2023.

The victims in the case are also plaintiffs in a civil case filed in October, which targets banking and financial services that profited from Pratt and his associates’ sex trafficking.