The FBI says that the men behind the disgraced GirlsDoPorn website were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to harass and intimidate 22 women who sued them for fraud and coercion. A judge awarded those women $13 million in January. Now one of the men, Matthew Wolfe, is in custody and facing criminal charges. Authorities believe another defendant, ringleader Michael Pratt, has fled the country.
Wolfe is asking to be let out on bail. On Thursday, Motherboard published an FBI document arguing against his motion. It details just how far the men were willing to go to retaliate against the women.
The FBI arrested Wolfe in October and searched the offices of GirlsDoPorn the next day. The April 22 document, which came to light this week, describes the result of that search.
“Agents located a chart listing countries that do not extradite individuals to the United States,” US Attorney Robert Brewer wrote. “The chart indicated whether each country had on-line banking and whether citizens of New Zealand, like defendant, could obtain a visa.”
Brewer says that the defendant’s fiancée has a wealthy family and could access funds to assist in fleeing to New Zealand—and then to a third country with no US extradition treaty.
“22 Whores”
Brewer also says that FBI agents “found evidence of efforts to harass and intimidate the victims and their attorneys.”
They found a video script called “22 Whores + 5 Shady Lawyers VS GirlsDoPorn.” The subheading read “Share and spread this video as far and wide as possible.”
The typo-laden script listed the names of the 22 women who sued the porn site. “Put each girls [sic] full name and location on screen before rolling there [sic] shit,” the script said—presumably “their shit” here is footage from their pornographic videos.
The video was supposed to end with the text “These retarded lawyers and disquisting [sic] whores wasted 3 years of everyones [sic] time. Ask yourself how viral these videos will go now if nobody is controlling them… Good job.”
One of the allegations of women against GirlsDoPorn is that the site’s proprietors deliberately leaked their real names in order to drum up interest in their videos. But publishing a video like this would have been a more brazen act of doxing.
Brewer says he also found “a phone list with victims’ names and Jane Doe numbers” (plaintiffs were referred to as “Jane Doe 1,” “Jane Doe 2,” etc. during the trial) that “memorialized attempts to get information from them over the telephone by posing as a journalist.”
On the back of the list was handwritten: “Hi, my name is [******], I’m a journalist from LA, I’m calling in regards to the girlsdoporn case. I’ve heard from your [sic] related to the case and curious to get a comment if you have the spare time.”
Wolfe had argued that he should be released because he suffers from sleep apnea and doesn’t want to catch the coronavirus while in jail. But Brewer countered that sleep apnea is not a known risk factor for COVID-19. He argued that Wolfe should stay in jail despite the infection risk.
