GirlsDoPorn Operations Chief Says He Never Promised Movies Would Be DVD-Only
Consultant Matthew Wolfe testified that the adult film company still doesn't specify the website name in its contracts with models. "Most people know that pornography goes online," he said, as Jane Doe No. 1, the law graduate, watched from the audience.
October 03, 2019 at 02:52 PM
6 minute read
The original version of this story was published on The Recorder
The operations chief for GirlsDoPorn.com testified Wednesday that the company still isn't spelling out the destination of its videos in modeling contracts, despite claims from 22 former actresses that they were falsely told the videos would never appear online.
"Do the contracts currently being used reference GirlsDoPorn.com?" plaintiffs attorney Brian Holm asked Matthew Wolfe, a consultant who has provided videography and business services.
"I don't believe so," Wolfe said.
The women signed releases granting GirlsDoPorn's parent company the right to distribute their likenesses "throughout the world in perpetuity without limitations." Their San Diego Superior Court lawsuit contends that Wolfe, GirlsDoPorn parent BLL Media owner Michael Pratt and others gave them verbal promises that the videos would be distributed only by DVD to private collectors outside the United States.
Wolfe, a consultant and videographer whom plaintiffs call "the nuts and bolts guy of the operation," said he never made such promises or heard them being made. Nor was he asked about distribution.
Plaintiff attorney Holm sounded incredulous. "Of the 100 models you filmed, none of them ever asked you where the videos were going?" he said.
"Not that I recall," Wolfe replied. If he'd been asked, he said, he would have told them that they would appear on a website, though he would not have specified GirlsDoPorn. "Most people know that pornography goes online," he said.
The 22 plaintiffs contend that GirlsDoPorn recruited them using modeling advertisements on Craigslist, flew them to San Diego, and then directed employees and women masquerading as former models to falsely assure them the videos would never go online. A former videographer for the company has testified that he might have made such promises, and a former administrative assistant testified last week that she overheard Pratt giving such assurances.
Lawyers for BLL have stressed that the women signed written releases and even gave videotaped statements that "anything contained in the footage may be used however BLL Media chooses." They say the women simply regret their decisions to appear in the films and will make up any story to get them taken down.
Wolfe is the person BLL designated as the most qualified to testify about its operations. He gave calm, though closely guarded testimony, in San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright's courtroom as one of the plaintiffs, a law graduate known in court as Jane Doe No. 1, observed from the audience.
Wolfe denied the plaintiffs' claim that GirlsDoPorn actor Andre Garcia sometimes provided models marijuana before they were filmed signing the releases. Holm confronted him with snippets from two videos Wolfe recorded in which marijuana pipes or canisters appear to be visible in the background.
"I know Mr. Garcia smokes marijuana," Wolfe said, but he never saw him doing it on a set. "He may have set it down. I didn't see it."
Wolfe also testified that Pratt creates "trailers" of the models' videos, running five to 10 minutes, for distribution to widely viewed free sites such Pornhub. That promotes the videos and drives traffic to GirlsDoPorn.com, where the full 45-minute videos are available on a subscription basis.
Holm showed Wolfe a screenshot of GirlsDoPorn's channel on Pornhub, which appeared to indicate that the full videos of the plaintiffs suing GirlsDoPorn had been uploaded to Pornhub. The plaintiffs have alleged this was retaliation for bringing their lawsuit.
What is the business purpose for uploading the full videos? Holm asked.
"The only thing I could think of would be more marketing material," Wolfe said. "But I don't know. That's not my decision."
It was clear the person plaintiffs really want to hear from is Pratt. Holm quizzed Wolfe about Pratt's alleged ownership of BLL and related entities, the last time they communicated, even the last time Wolfe had been to Pratt's house.
Wolfe said that he'd spoken with Pratt by phone Wednesday, before he began testifying. Pratt spent part of the last few months in Mexico, after publicity about the upcoming trial resulted in threats against him, Wolfe said. He flew from Tijuana, Mexico, to New Zealand, the country where both men grew up. "He felt he had to go home," Wolfe said.
Last week, former administrative assistant Valorie Moser testified that Pratt instructed her never to tell the models where the videos would appear when she drove models to and from the San Diego airport. "You were specifically told by Michael Pratt to not tell them about GirlsDoPorn.com?" Holm asked.
"That's correct," Moser answered.
She also testified that Pratt had told her the BLL acronym stands for BMW, Land Rover, Lamborghini. Pratt sold his Lamborghini after the suit was filed, Moser said, telling her "the models weren't going to get a dime."
Moser said it was her practice to forward text messages of models' complaints to Pratt. On cross-examination by George Rikos of the Law Office of George Rikos, she admitted that none of the text messages produced for the litigation included the words "DVD" or "Australia."
Moser testified that she had initially sought a restraining order against Holm after he tried to serve her with papers outside of the BLL offices. She said she struck a settlement with the plaintiffs during a break in her December 2018 deposition, "to have my name removed from the case" as a defendant.
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