SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — After years of investigation by the FBI and U.S. Marshals, the owner of GirlsDoPorn was sentenced in a San Diego federal court to nearly three decades in prison for sex trafficking hundreds of women.
Michael Pratt, 42, was sentenced on Monday to 27 years in prison for his role in the scheme that exploited hundreds of women into filming porn, in some cases forcibly, who were told the videos would never be made public, according to the court. Pratt is one of five total defendants in the case and has, so far, received the longest sentence, according to the Department of Justice U.S. Attorney’s Office in Southern California.
At Monday’s hearing, 40 women asked the court the give Pratt the maximum sentence, while some of the victims described the situations in San Diego hotel rooms where they were exploited, coerced, raped, abused and trapped, the court reports.
Some of the victims at the hearing talked about the resulting trauma, suicide attempts, depression, anxiety, and PTSD, even losing jobs, relationships, and having stalkers, being threatened and harassed.
Most of the victims were 18 to 21 years old at the time, the DOJ said.
Pratt was first charged in October 2019 in the Southern District of California with sex trafficking crimes in connection with the scheme to deceive and coerce young women to appear in pornographic videos, according to the DOJ.
After being charged, he is accused of liquidating his assets and fleeing the U.S. in mid-2019, landing him on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List.
He was arrested in December 2022 and extradited to San Diego from Spain in March 2024.
The court states Pratt was the owner and operator of GirlsDoPorn.com and GirlsDoToys.com and that him and his co-conspirators posted misleading modeling ads, preyed on vulnerable women, and promised their sex videos would never be seen online. However, those videos were posted online and even on some free platforms like PornHub, getting millions of views in some cases.
The women were flown out to San Diego for filming, which usually took place in a short-term rental or hotel.
The court stated victims were often threatened and told their flights would be canceled if they didn’t finish the video shoots. Some were even trapped in hotel rooms by camera equipment blocking the exits.
“Pratt has caused me to fear my own name,” one woman said.
“The life I was meant to have, died in that hotel room,” another told the court.
“Profit over people. Cruelty over humanity,” another said.
“You are evil. You are a predator. You are a rapist. This is who you are. Your ego was too big to believe you’d ever get caught but karma comes around. It is your turn now to suffer,” a woman who was fired from her job teaching dance to children said.
“This crime dismantled my identity. I lost my voice and sense of safety… The shame and despair were unbearable,” said another woman who was studying to become a teacher.
Another woman who was a college-bound high school senior but dropped out because of her experience said, “This was a theft of my identity, my safety, my dreams and my peace.”
The judge on Monday handed down a stricter sentence after hearing five hours of testimony from victims.
“I’ve been doing this a very long time and I’ve never had a case like this before, of this magnitude…The sheer scope and magnitude of this offense causes this court to vary upward.”
The videos from GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys posted on PornHub typically got millions views, according to PornHub’s view counters. The court reports the websites charged visitors a subscription fee to access content that generated millions of dollars in revenue for Pratt.
The court reports Pratt and some of his employees would tell the prospective models that their videos would never be seen online, that they would not be released in the United States and that people would not find out about the videos, knowing those were false statements.
The court said Pratt continued to recruit women and refused to take down videos even after learning that victims’ names and personal details were being doxxed on pornwikileaks.com.
“Pratt was a calculating and cruel predator,” said U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon. “He lured young
victims, caused others to abuse them on video, and then taunted them for years as they sought to reclaim their names. Afterwards these victims suffered each day the cruelty of the internet and social media. As one victim said today during sentencing, ‘Pratt caused me to fear my own name.’ We as a society failed these women. They were forced to walk alone. But today as they confronted Pratt, they personified courage and grace. They showed everyone what should have been apparent when they first were victimized – they don’t need society’s forgiveness, we need theirs.”
“Pratt admittedly engaged in a conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion,
making millions off a deliberate and reprehensible scheme, showing no regard for the suffering he caused,” said Special Agent in Charge Mark Dargis of the FBI’s San Diego Field Office. “At his
direction, Pratt and his co-conspirators manipulated women into participating in pornographic videos and then bullied, lied, or threatened them when they tried to leave. He then cowardly fled the country in an attempt to avoid prosecution, but the FBI and our domestic and foreign law enforcement partners were determined to hold Pratt accountable for the harm he inflicted on his victims’ lives. Today’s sentence reflects that investigative persistence, ensuring justice was rightfully served.”
The GirlsDoPorn investigation and prosecution took several years, according to the Department of Justice, and involved FBI agents, FBI analysts, the U.S. Marshal Service, victim advocates and prosecutors.
Pratt pleaded guilty on June 5, 2025, to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; and committing sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. Prosecutors argued for the longest sentence, given the serious nature of the offenses, Pratt’s leadership role, and the length of the conspiracy, the court said.
Co-conspirators Ruben Garcia was sentenced to 20 years in prison on June 14, 2021; Theodore Gyi was sentenced to four years in prison on November 9, 2022; Matthew Wolfe was sentenced to 14 years in prison on March 20, 2024; and Valorie Moser, the office manager, will be sentenced on September 12, 2025.
Minutes after Pratt’s sentencing on Monday, victims filed outside of the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego, hugging and supporting each other after an emotional day inside the courtroom.
Pratt has 14 days to appeal his sentencing.
Juliette Vara contributed to this report
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