Three victims of sex trafficking ring GirlsDoPorn brought a complaint against multiple companies that processed payments for the criminal organization, claiming that without their payment services, GirlsDoPorn would never have existed.
GirlsDoPorn was a criminal enterprise that coerced primarily high-school and college aged women with no experience in the adult industry into appearing in pornographic videos, by convincing them they were signing up for modeling gigs and telling them the videos would never be posted online. The ring was masterminded by Michael Pratt, who alongside multiple co-conspirators was charged with federal counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion in 2019. A federal judge sentenced Pratt to 27 years in prison last month, and most of his co-conspirators have also been sentenced to years or decades in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.
The lawsuit, brought by three women who appeared in the videos, seeks to become a class-action complaint on behalf of anyone who appeared in at least one pornographic video on GirlsDoPorn and its sister site GirlsDoToys between 2009 and 2019—which could include up to 300 more individuals, the complaint estimates. They allege that CCBill, Epoch, First Data Merchant Services, Total System Services, and a number of unnamed banks knowingly participated in GirlsDoPorn’s sex trafficking venture by providing it payment services.
Samantha Cole
The complaint was filed on Monday by several attorneys who’ve represented GirlsDoPorn victims since the civil case which went to trial in 2019. The defendant payment service companies generated “millions in fees for themselves and tens of millions for GirlsDoPorn,” the complaint claims. “By doing so, Defendants turned the victims’ sex acts into ‘commercial sex acts,’ a crucial element of sex trafficking under Section 1591 [the U.S. sex trafficking legal code]. Without Defendants’ payment network, GirlsDoPorn would have never been able to exist.”
CCBill is one of the most popular handlers of online porn payments and subscriptions. Epoch, another longtime service in the adult industry, was GirlsDoPorn’s payment facilitator, which acts as a gateway between credit card companies and merchants like porn sites. Total System Services and First Data were GirlsDoPorn’s payment processors, the complaint alleges, while the yet-unnamed banks settled the payments for GirlsDoPorn.
“Given the integral role of payment processing to the business of Internet pornography, GirlsDoPorn would never have become or remained a viable enterprise absent Defendants’ participation in the sex trafficking venture,” the plaintiffs argue. “GirlsDoPorn would never have achieved the level of success it did without Defendants actively assisting, supporting, and facilitating its unlawful business with streams of revenue.”
The plaintiffs claim that the defendants, as part of running their businesses, should have known GirlsDoPorn was a criminal enterprise, pointing to GirlsDoPorn’s own website and messaging as evidence: “Indeed, when it was launched, GirlsDoPorn’s website openly bragged about using fraud to lure a victim under the guise of a modeling advertisement—’She contacted us regarding an ad I had placed for beauty models wanted, having no idea it was actually for adult videos instead ha :)’” the complaint states. The plaintiffs also point to Reddit posts made by GirlsDoPorn victims talking about being abused, and the boasting GirlsDoPorn operators did on the website about how the women were “first-timers,” caught in their bait-and-switch scheme who would shoot porn for the “studio” exclusively, and weren’t part of the adult industry as a career choice.
“As the years went by, Defendants ignored dozens of red flags indicating GirlsDoPorn was a sex trafficking venture,” the complaint states. By 2017, they allege, defendants “could no longer feign ignorance of GirlsDoPorn’s illegal business practices” because the plaintiffs were served a subpoena as part of the civil case in San Diego seeking records related to GirlsDoPorn.
The defendants continued processing payments for the organization until October 2019, the plaintiffs claim, at which point everyone involved was arrested or indicted on federal sex trafficking charges and the websites went offline. “Only then did Defendants stop processing payments forGirlsDoPorn, but it was not by choice,” the complaint claims. “Any ignorance Defendants may have had to GirlsDoPorn’s illegal business practices prior to October 2019 is a direct result of Defendants’ own negligence, recklessness, or willful desire to remain ignorant, which is no defense under Section 1595.”
In addition to certifying the class action and a jury trial, the plaintiffs seek damages exceeding $1 million for each member of the class, restitution for what CCBill and Epoch earned from GirlsDoPorn, punitive damages, and attorney fees.
CCBill and Epoch did not respond to requests for comment. Fiserv, which owns First Data, and Total System Services did not immediately respond to comment requests.
