GirlsDoPorn Videographer Testifies He Lied to Models

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—One of the videographers who shot hardcore scenes of amateur women for GirlsDoPorn.com testified in court Thursday he had lied to the women about where their scenes would appear, and that he failed to correct actor/director Andre Garcia's similar lies. The videographer, Teddy Gyi, who assisted the company's main shooter Matthew Wolfe, and who himself had shot more than 100 scenes in San Diego hotel rooms, stated under oath that "he had heard the actor and director Garcia tell the women on numerous occasions that 'it was DVD only and they were sent to Australia'," NBC 7 San Diego reported. “I heard [Garcia] tell women the videos would not be posted online,” Gyi testified. Gyi was one of the first GirlsDoPorn employees to testify at the trial, which is now in its second week and is expected to continue for at least another month. So far, nearly all of the 22 "Jane Doe" plaintiffs have told Judge Kevin Enright and a jury about how they had been deceived after responding to ads for bikini models on Craigslist and similar sites, and lured to California with promises of as much as $7,000 to shoot a half-hour hardcore scene, which they were promised would never be seen in the United States. "I was in a financial hard time at the point and I actually needed—I had just got a DUI and I had to pay off my lawyers and my car so I was kind of in a tough spot," one Jane Doe reported. "It just said 'Modeling job, bikini shot, paying up to thousands of dollars' so I clicked on it." "He kept insisting I hear him out on the other offer," said Jane Doe 15, recounting how she had been contacted by "Johnathan," a pseudonym either for Garcia or GirlsDoPorn owner Michael Pratt, after she responded to an ad. "He said it would be thirty minutes of having sex, it would be $5,000… He repeatedly said 'not online, not online'; he said the videos would be on DVDs in Australia and other countries. I asked if I could do other modeling and he said no. "I wasn’t interested in doing porn. I knew how being in a porn could affect your future, your job opportunities, and how people believe you," she added later. "But he kept saying that no one would ever find out it wouldn’t go online." To cement the deal, "Johnathan" gave Jane Doe 15 the email addresses and/or phone numbers of at least two "reference women," Amberlyn Carter and Kaitlyn Wright, who although they had not shot any hardcore themselves, had been paid by Pratt to say that they had and that everything "Johnathan" had promised the women (some of whom were as young as 17 when first contacted) was on the up-and-up. "In a text submitted to the court, Kaitlyn told Doe 15, 'l'm sure you’re nervous or maybe even sketched out a little bit but you seriously have nothing to worry about! It’s completely legit'," reported The Daily Beast's Tarpley Hitt. "When Doe asked about the distribution, Kaitlyn responded, 'Yeah, so it goes out to wealthier countries; yea DVDs and stuff like that but nothing online!'" As it turned out, nothing could have been further from the truth. Not only did the women's real names show up on pirate site PornWikiLeaks, which has been recently shut down, but the scenes were put online and appeared on several websites such as Pornhub in addition to the GirlsDoPorn.com site itself. "I was getting a text from multiple people saying. 'Make her go viral' and it was a .gif of myself," one victim told NBC's Insight podcast. "I received a text message from our neighbor and she said, 'Is it true we have a porn star living in our neighborhood?' And she followed through with the longest, meanest paragraph, and I just blocked her number." "I was mortified, I was scared, I was very fearful," said another. "It was a devastating feeling, I felt like I was lied to. I felt like I was definitely taken advantage of. I felt stupid, even though I know it wasn't my fault for falling for something that was so well put-together." "I had to drop out of college to avoid ongoing harassment from classmates," Jane Doe 6 said in the lawsuit. "I have been harassed at work about the video to the point that I had to quit. I am now scared to apply for new jobs." The women testified that drugs (or at least cannabis) and alcohol were plentiful on the set, and as for the "big money" the women were promised for the shoots, at least one was handed an alleged $5,000 stack that had a couple of hundred-dollar bills on the top and bottom, but in-between were ones, leaving her with $400 total—a fact she didn't discover until later, and when she attempted to contact Pratt to "rectify" the error, she either received no answer to messages left, or Pratt simply hung up on her. Many were not paid nearly the amount they were promised. Before the trial began, Pratt had tried to declare bankruptcy, which was unsuccessful—a judge threw the case out—but one thing that was revealed during the pendency of the case was that Pratt was pulling in $67,000 per month in salary. Perhaps one interesting sidelight to the case is that the custodian of records for the women's identities as listed on the GirlsDoPorn website is GT Group Ltd., owned by New Zealander Geoff Taylor, who's been linked to international money laundering and weapons sales. Perhaps somewhat more interesting, though, is that the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego, one of the upscale hotels where shoots took place, is being sued by French artist Yves Clement, who leased the hotel more than $6.5 million worth of his art for wall hangings and headboards. Clement claims that more than 120 of his pieces have been damaged in some way, either by having been infested with bedbugs or by having been cut, defaced or splattered upon—but that's not all. "Clement also objects that several of his distinctive canvas headboards have been featured in pornographic videos filmed at the U.S. Grant and distributed on the girlsdoporn.com website," reported Courthouse News, which also noted that Clement is seeking damages for "breach of contract, breach of faith, negligence, failing to maintain appropriate insurance on the art, and declaratory judgment interpreting the 'damaged art' section of the lease." Pictured, l-r: Andre Garcia, Matthew Wolfe and Michael Pratt.