New Zealand pornography producer pleads guilty to sex trafficking in the U.S.

A New Zealand man who helped build a US-based pornography firm by dragooning  young women into filming adult videos has pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

Matthew Isaac Wolfe, 40, admitted to his involvement in the ploy that recruited women to perform in videos for GirlsDoPorn, on the promise that the content would not be streamed in the United States and would not be uploaded online. Wolfe is the fourth defendant to plead guilty in connection to the case.

The website that  generates more than US$17m in revenue was launched in 2006 by New Zealander Michael Pratt. The operations were managed by Ruben Garcia and Wolfe, who moved to the U.S. in 2011 to help Pratt. 

As per the California court, Wolfe  filmed about 100 videos, uploaded them on to the internet, oversaw the companies’ finances and promoted the business. He  also trained co-defendant Theodore Gyi, a cameraman, on how to run video shoots, including Gyi to tell the women the videos would not be uploaded online.

Wolfe admitted that to persuade the women to appear in the videos, he'd misled them by convincing them that the videos would neither be featured online nor released in the United States. The Department of Justice said Wolfe knew these representations were false because the videos were exclusively marketed and distributed on the internet.

They were promised that the footage would go straight to DVD for wealthy buyers in other countries, in particular Australia and New Zealand, where the defendants come from.

 The women, who applied to a modelling call-out on Craigslist, were contacted by other women who acted as “references” pitching the idea of making adult films that would never go online. The women reported feeling pressured to take part and those who tried to back out were threatened.

To persuade women to appear in the films, Wolfe told the victims that no one who knew the women would ever find out about the videos, which he knew was false, the court said, because the videos were exclusively marketed and posted on the internet and have been viewed more than a billion times.

The court said that Wolfe was aware of the fact that personal identifying information and social media accounts were being posted on pornwikileaks.com, a site controlled by Pratt, subjecting the victims to severe harassment. 

“This crime had a devastating impact on the victims,” said US attorney Randy Grossman. “We will seek justice for human trafficking victims in hopes that it will help them reclaim their lives and leave the pain of this experience in the past. 

Wolfe has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the crime. Meanwhile, the FBI is offering a reward of up to US$50,000 for information leading to the location and arrest of Pratt, 39, who continues to evade authorities.

In 2020, a US judge awarded US$12.7m in damages to the 22 women who were defrauded.