Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Woman Who Shot Porn Testifies She Knew Videos Would Go Online

A woman who shot at least 15 porn videos for GirlsDoPorn affiliate website MomPOV.com said Thursday she knew the videos would be posted online to a members-only website.

SAN DIEGO (CN) – A woman who shot at least 15 porn videos for GirlsDoPorn affiliate website MomPOV.com said Thursday she knew the videos would be posted online to a members-only website.

Tara Burns shot videos with MomPOV owner Douglas Wiederhold – owner of Domi Publications, a GirlsDoPorn affiliate named in the civil lawsuit – starting in 2010.

Wiederhold was the original male actor who shot videos with GirlsDoPorn before current actor Andre Garcia was employed in the role.

Burns said Thursday when questioned by Wiederhold and Domi Publications’ attorney George Rikos she responded to a job advertisement in the “adult” section of Backpage.com, a website shut down by the government for allowing people to buy and sell sex online, including victims of child sex trafficking.

She agreed to make videos with Wiederhold, knowing they would be posted online to a “members-only website.” Burns was paid in cash to film some but not all the videos.

She did not say Thursday the amount she was paid.

Burns is one of the only witnesses, in addition to a couple of experts, called by the defense in their case following multiple attempts to stall the civil trial after human trafficking charges were filed by the Justice Department in federal court.

Her testimony offers an alternative to the main focus of the months-long trial accusing GirlsDoPorn of tricking women to appear in its films based on the lie the videos would never get posted online.

But during court Thursday, Brian Holm, one of the attorneys representing the 22 Jane Does who’ve sued GirlsDoPorn for fraud, said the two websites are completely different.

He suggested MomPOV was created to “recruit women already in the porn industry” and did not tout itself as an “amateur-only” website whose models had never appeared in porn flicks, like GirlsDoPorn had.

Burns had already been involved in the porn industry prior to shooting with MomPOV, having shot a solo photo shoot and worked as a “cam” model.

She also shot videos for MomPOV.com years before any of the Jane Does shot videos with GirlsDoPorn, with the earliest video at issue in the lawsuit being shot in 2013.

Burns answered affirmatively when asked by Holm if she believed the advertisement she responded to was for a job that was sex-related.

In contrast, the women who ended up shooting videos for GirlsDoPorn claim they initially provided their contact information via websites such as BeginModeling.com and believed they were applying to do clothed – or nude – modeling shoots.

Burns said she helped recruit three other women to shoot videos for MomPOV.com, telling them the videos would be posted on a “members-only” website before they shot the videos for which she was paid commissions.

When asked by Holm if she had told the women their videos could also be posted to PornHub, one of the most trafficked websites in the world, Burns said she had not even though her own videos had also been posted to the free porn website.

Burns said Wiederhold introduced her to GirlsDoPorn’s owner Michael Pratt and Garcia. She lived with Wiederhold and GirlsDoPorn videographer Matthew Wolfe for six months from 2010 to 2011.

The men used the apartment for photo shoots with some of the women, Burns said.

The trial is expected to last through next week.

Follow @@BiancaDBruno
Categories / Civil Rights, Entertainment, Trials

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...