The final defendant in the long-running prosecution involving GirlsDoPorn.com was sentenced in San Diego federal court Friday.
Douglas Wiederhold, 42, who appeared as the male actor in 71 of the website’s pornographic videos, pleaded guilty in 2024 to a federal conspiracy charge for his involvement with the now-defunct site. He was sentenced to four years in prison
According to his plea agreement, Wiederhold falsely assured at least two women that their videos wouldn’t be posted online after knowing other women’s videos already had been uploaded to the Internet.
Prosecutors say that for years, GirlsDoPorn’s owners and operators coerced and tricked hundreds of women into appearing in online pornographic videos by falsely assuring them their videos would be distributed only to private customers on DVDs or other physical platforms, while always intending to post the videos on the internet.
Wiederhold, whose plea agreement states he took part in the conspiracy from 2011 to 2012, was charged nearly four years after the bulk of the defendants in the case, including website owner Michael James Pratt.
During Friday’s sentencing hearing, defense attorney Patrick Griffin argued his client had far less involvement in GirlsDoPorn’s criminal activities than any of the other defendants.
Griffin said Wiederhold “went along” with the false representations forwarded by Pratt and failed to contradict his lies, but denied that his client actively took part in deceiving the women.
Weiderhold apologized in court and said that he was “ashamed” of his role in the crimes, while Griffin said his client “carries immense regret and shame” for taking part in the deception.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Foster said Wiederhold was the “nice guy, the friendly face, the one who gave (victims) assurances it would be ok,” while knowing that they were being lied to.
The prosecutor highlighted one text message exchange in which a woman notified Wiederhold that the video they appeared in was posted online.
He denied knowing how the video got there, but when the woman sent him a link, he ignored her and stopped responding, Foster said. After that conversation, Wiederhold continued working for GirlsDoPorn for nearly a year, according to the prosecutor.
Just as with other sentencings in the case, U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino heard statements from several women who spoke of the impact their videos’ dissemination had on them.
One victim took issue with Wiederhold distancing himself from Pratt and from involvement in GirlsDoPorn’s formation into a sex trafficking enterprise.
Before the video she shot with Wiederhold, she said he already knew other women’s videos had been uploaded online.
“Your involvement wasn’t incidental or passive,” the woman said. “You helped build the machine.”
Griffin had asked Sammartino to impose a sentence of one year of home confinement, but the judge said prison time was warranted.
Sammartino, who has presided over the case since its inception and sentenced all of the defendants, commented on the unique nature of the crimes prior to imposing the four-year prison term.
“It’s clear to the court that what has happened in this case will have long lasting harm. Some of that damage will be lifelong,” the judge said. “I have never had a case like this before and I think that’s a good thing.”
Pratt received a 27-year prison sentence last year. He spent three years on the run before his arrest and was at one time on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list. Others who were sentenced include actor Ruben Andre Garcia, to 20 years in prison, and Pratt’s business partner Matthew Isaac Wolfe, who received a 14-year sentence.
Outside of the criminal cases, one group of women was awarded nearly $13 million by a San Diego judge at the end of a civil trial for activities involving GirlsDoPorn.
The website also spurred lawsuits from more than 100 women against the parent company for streaming site PornHub for allegedly profiting off of GirlsDoPorn’s trafficking by hosting its videos.
The company reached settlements with the women in both lawsuits and also agreed to pay over $1.8 million to resolve a probe by federal prosecutors who alleged the company knew or should have known it was accepting money that originated from sex-trafficking operations.
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