Predatory Porn Company’s Crazy Plan to Target Witnesses Revealed, From Posing as Journalists to Doxxing
On Oct. 10, 2019, federal investigators unsealed an indictment charging the owners and two employees of the websites Girls Do Porn and Girls Do Toys with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. They arrested three of the four defendants. They named the fourth, a New Zealander named Michael Pratt who had already fled the country, a fugitive.
The indictment coincided with a sprawling class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of 22 unnamed women who claimed the company had operated an extensive fraud scheme to coerce women into filming illicit videos, while squirreling profits away in shell companies, and systematically doxxing those who complained. In January this year, a San Diego judge ruled in favor of the Jane Does, awarding them a total of $12.775 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
But the federal case trudges on, albeit more slowly due to the outbreak of COVID-19, and recent filings have continued to shed light on details of the company’s operation. On April 20, attorneys representing Matthew Isaac Wolfe, whom prosecutors describe as Pratt’s “right hand man,” filed a motion to release him into home detention, citing his sleep apnea as a potential risk for COVID-19. (The CDC does not list sleep apnea as a risk factor for COVID-19. Jails and other densely populated custodial settings, however, pose a greater threat of transmission). In a response filed two days later, prosecutors outlined their opposition to Wolfe’s release, detailing for the first time the findings from an FBI raid conducted the day before his arrest.
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