The San Diego U.S. attorney's office is bringing criminal sex trafficking charges against the owner of GirlsDoPorn.com and three others associated with the website.

Owner Michael James Pratt; videographer and consultant Matthew Isaac Wolfe; actor and model recruiter Ruben Andre Garcia and former administrative assistant Valorie Moser are accused of participating in a scheme to deceive and coerce young women to appear in sex videos, according to a press release issued by the office.

The criminal complaint, which is expected to be unsealed Friday, appears to track civil allegations by 22 women against three of the defendants and related business entities. The defendants allegedly convinced the women they could perform anonymously and their videos would not be posted on the internet. "In reality, the entire purpose was to post the videos on the internet," according the U.S. attorney's office.

Attorneys who represent Pratt and Wolfe at the civil trial did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They have argued at trial that they were upfront about the nature of the videos, and that the women signed contracts giving them the right to distribute the videos throughout the world without limitations.

Wolfe was taken into custody Tuesday, the day after completing several days of testimony in the civil trial in San Diego Superior Court. Garcia was arrested on Wednesday. Moser, who testified two weeks ago, is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Garcia and Pratt have declined to appear at the trial, though Pratt's attorneys have been negotiating for him to appear via video feed. Wolfe testified that Pratt told him in a recent phone conversation that he'd spent time in Mexico and then returned to his native New Zealand in the run-up to the trial. The U.S. attorney's office has deemed Pratt a fugitive.

The U.S. attorney's office contends that the defendants used deception and false promises to lure the victims, who had responded to ads for modeling jobs. Once the women responded, the defendants would disclose that the job was really for adult films, but assure them that they could remain anonymous, according to the office. Ultimately the videos appeared both on GirlsDoPorn.com and other popular porn websites, resulting in harassment and ridicule. The complaint also charges that some models were sexually assaulted and in at least one case raped, according to the office.

Pratt, Garcia and Wolfe are charged under 18 U.S.C. Section 1591(a) and (b)(1), which outlaw sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. Moser is charged with conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. Section 1594.

Wolfe, who filmed some of the videos, testified last week that none of the models asked him about distribution and that he never made any promises about it either. He also acknowledged that the company did not then, nor does it now, specify in its model releases that the videos will appear online or at GirlsDoPorn.com.

Moser testified that she had heard Pratt promise some models on the phone that distribution would be limited to DVD, and that he instructed her not to discuss distribution with the models.

Anthony Colombo, an attorney who represents Moser, said she intends to plead not guilty, and that she "looks forward to addressing the charges, whatever they might be, at a later date."

Ed Chapin, an attorney at Sanford Heisler Sharp who represents the plaintiffs, said in a written statement that he's uncertain how the charges will affect the civil trial. Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright could put the trial, now in its eighth week, on hold. "We are currently about two weeks away from finishing and would like to have our case resolved without delay," he said.

Read more: