SAN DIEGOSAN DIEGO — An attorney for 22 women whose names were published on a pornography website after they made sexually explict videos said in a San Diego court Tuesday that the “outing” ruined their lives.
Some tried suicide, others were ostracized by their family and friends. Some lost their jobs or college sorority hip, their lawyer said.
The women have sued three men involved with GirlsDoPorn.com and related businesses, alleging fraud, breach of contract and misusing their names and photos by posting graphic videos of them on the internet without consent and reaping millions in profits.
Trial for Michael Pratt, Matthew Wolfe and Andre Garcia began with lawyers’ opening statements before Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright, who will hear the civil case without a jury.
Edward Chapin, attorney for the women, said his clients — young, on their own and desperate for money — believed when they answered a Craigslist ad calling for models that they would be making clothed videos. He said they were verbally promised that the footage would be sold only on DVDs to wealthy buyers in Australia or New Zealand and never released on the internet.
Chapin said those were lies repeated by the company leaders, Wolfe and Pratt, by Garcia, the male actor who took part in the sex scenes, and by other young women paid to reassure the new recruits by pretending to have made videos without problems.
Lawyers for the defendants say the women knew what they were g up for when they agreed to be flown from their homes around the country to San Diego, where they were paid thousands of dollars, given written release forms and recorded on camera agreeing that they were making the videos willingly.
No one tricked them into visiting the website or forced them to get onto the flight to San Diego, defense lawyer Aaron Sadock said, adding that some of the plaintiffs went on to make more than one sex video with the company or other companies.
He said Wolfe was an independent contractor and Garcia a paid employee who had nothing to do with the running of the company.
The women, referred to in court and in official documents only as Jane Does 1 through 22, are seeking punitive damages, damages for emotional distress, ownership rights to their videos and to reap the company’s profits made off those videos.
“We want them shut down,” Chapin said.
He said company’s profits off the women amounted to about $50,000 per video, totaling some $4.8 million, by making the videos of graphic sex acts available by paid subscription to the GirlsDoPorn.com website.
The women’s images also were used in ads on other porn sites to drive online traffic to GirlsDoPorn.com, Chapin said. He added that after the women began legal action, their names were “outed” on PornWikileaks, a website viewed by millions worldwide that Pratt acquired.
Then, Chapin said, the women were subjected to a “living hell” of harassment, humiliation and solicitations.
Sadock, however, said putting video clips in ads on other, free websites is standard business practice to direct viewers to the paid subscription site. He said it will be hard for plaintiffs to prove that his clients leaked the women’s personal information, which could have been uncovered by internet “trolls” and those who demand payment to remove women’s names from porn sites.
The women knew the risks and were not naive about making adult videos, Sadock said. He said most viewers of pornography watch online, not on DVDs, and that the agreements each woman read on camera clearly stated that their names and likenesses could be used across any media, worldwide, without limitation.
The trial is expected to last several weeks. Chapin said he intends to call each Jane Doe to testify in court.
