SAN DIEGO (CN) – A judge in San Diego vindicated 22 Jane Does on Thursday by awarding them nearly $13 million in damages over the rights to videos they’d sought from adult film purveyor GirlsDoPorn following a monthslong civil fraud trial that garnered international attention.
The women claimed in a 2016 lawsuit they were duped into filming for San Diego-based GirlsDoPorn when they were between the ages 18 to 23 based on the lie the videos were for a private collector or to be sold on DVDs overseas. They said they were promised the videos would never appear online and that their names would never be associated with the videos.
In reality, GirlsDoPorn never revealed the name of the website the videos were being produced for and several in the company were in on the scheme: owner Michael Pratt, videographer Matthew Wolfe, actor Andre Garcia and administrative assistant Valorie Moser.
During the fraud trial, the defendants uploaded a new video to the GirlsDoPorn website. Jane Doe “A” testified she wasn’t told about the lawsuit when she shot the video this past August – even though the trial had been underway for nearly a month when the video was released.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright found clear and convincing evidence the defendants engaged in malice, oppression or fraud in a 187-page proposed statement of decision, awarding $9.475 million in compensatory damages and $3.3 million in punitive damages. The punitive award amounts to $150,000 for each of the women.
“Defendants' tactics have caused the videos to become common knowledge in plaintiffs' communities and among their relations and peers – the very thing that plaintiffs feared and that defendants expressly assured them would not happen," Enright wrote. "As a result, plaintiffs have suffered and continue to suffer far-reaching and often tragic consequences.”
“Collectively, they have experienced severe harassment, emotional and psychological trauma, and reputational harm; lost jobs, academic and professional opportunities, and family and personal relationships; and had their lives derailed and uprooted,” the ruling continues. “They have become pariahs in their communities. Several plaintiffs have become suicidal.”
The women’s attorney Ed Chapin said “the convincing force of our evidence” swayed the judge to find for his clients.
“Our clients were real and they had similar stories because the defendants told the same lies to everyone,” Chapin said in an interview. “I sat and talked to a lot of women. My heart just wept for them, how their lives have been impacted by this, and how they were sucked into doing what they did. The attitude these defendants expressed when the women complained, the scheme to shut them up, was despicable.”
The defendants have 15 days to file an objection to the proposed order. GirlsDoPorn’s attorneys Daniel Kaplan and Aaron Sadock indicated they will “most likely” do so.