Pratt had lured hundreds of women—mostly ages 18 to 21—across the US and Canada with promises of modeling. He misled them about how, where and with whom their videos would be shared. Later, he profited from posting their coerced sex videos online—on subscription platforms and free porn sites alike—while many victims endured harassment, depression, substance abuse, identity theft and lifelong suffering.
Many women pleaded for their videos to be taken down, sometimes over years. Pratt and his associates ignored those pleas.
What makes this case especially significant is not just the length of the sentence, but the full unmasking of a system that preys on vulnerability—and the degree to which survivors have been heard, taken seriously and awarded legal redress. It’s rare for one person to be held so fully accountable, for the harms to be so clearly laid out and for justice—even if delayed—to arrive with such force.
The enormity of Pratt’s role as ringleader, the span of his operation, its reach—all these justified not just the court’s attention, but a departure upward in sentencing—something that happens to just 4.6 percent of federally sentenced individuals. His punishment, said US District Judge Janis L. Sammartino, was tied to the “sheer scope and magnitude of this offense.” Added the judge, observing her decades on the bench: “I’ve been doing this a very long time and I’ve never had a case like this before.”
Pratt’s empire, active between about 2012 and 2019, operated on lies at every turn. Young women were recruited via false modeling ads and were promised not just privacy and dignity but even that their content would never be seen in the US or by people they knew. In truth, their images were uploaded to multiple porn sites—including free platforms like PornHub—and shared globally. Many women pleaded for their videos to be taken down, sometimes over years. Pratt and his associates ignored those pleas.
Some victims described being held in hotel rooms, intoxicated, rushed into signing contracts they couldn’t read, or trapped by camera equipment blocking exits. Others said they were threatened with lawsuits or exposure if they tried to leave before a video shoot was done. Many years later, survivors still grapple with shame, anguish, lost careers, identity loss and even suicide attempts.
Pratt, who fled while a civil case was in process, was indicted in 2019, arrested in Spain in 2022 and extradited to the US in 2024. He pleaded guilty in June 2025 to conspiracy and sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. His guilt, therefore, isn’t just “legal”—it’s confessed.
At sentencing, 40 women addressed the court, exposing concrete scars etched on identities, families, futures. Their stories were harrowing: “The life I was meant to have died in that hotel room,” one said. Another: “Pratt has caused me to fear my own name.”
Many confronted Pratt directly. “I am not your victim. I’m your reckoning,” said one woman, who was a 21-year-old law student when Pratt preyed on her. “I am the girl who took you down. Look around! We are an army of survivors sharing our truth and we have won.”
Meanwhile, co-conspirators have also been sentenced: Ruben Andre Garcia got 20 years; Matthew Isaac Wolfe 14 years; Theodore Gyi four years. In civil court, in 2020, 22 women were awarded $12.7 million in damages from Pratt, Wolfe and Garcia. Over 120 women have filed civil suits federally against GirlsDoPorn and platforms that hosted its content.
For every video taken down, for every case wound up in court, many more exist in shadows.
Platforms like PornHub became a major piece of the puzzle: They hosted content generated by GirlsDoPorn, which drove traffic and revenue. In 2023, PornHub’s parent company (Aylo Holdings/formerly MindGeek) admitted to profiting from that content and agreed to pay over $1.8 million to the US government and victims.
For many survivors, this sentence is more than just legal closure—it is part of a long journey toward healing, reclamation and transformation. Some used identity theft, name changes, even cosmetic surgery to escape recognition. Others have built new lives: graduating college, working in tech, helping others with takedown notices and fighting back against the online permanence of their abuse.
Yet many challenges remain. The internet does not forget—screenshots, reposts, hidden archives mean content lives on even if the original site is gone. As lawsuits proceed, civil redress brings money, but trauma, privacy loss, reputation damage often persist. Also, platforms still struggle with—or resist—takedowns. Legal frameworks for digital abuse remain underdeveloped.
There is also a broader reckoning: What responsibility do platforms have? What legal and technological tools are needed to combat nonconsensual pornography and coercive porn industries? What protections ensure the voices of survivors are not lost amid the clamor of free speech debates and tech policy?
Pratt’s sentencing is not an isolated scandal. It fits into a larger digital landscape where technology enables sexual exploitation at industrial scale while the law struggles to catch up. A recent Freedom Magazine investigation into MrDeepFakes revealed how a Canadian pharmacist, David Do, secretly built the world’s largest deepfake porn site, generating billions of views with AI-manipulated images of women—from celebrities to ordinary social media users—without consent.
The parallels are striking. In Pratt’s case, coercion took place in hotel rooms, sealed by contracts and lies; in the deepfake world, coercion is virtual—a face copy-pasted onto a body in violent or humiliating contexts. But the consequences converge: lives upended, reputations ruined, safety compromised and victims left to navigate systems ill-equipped to protect them.
Both cases highlight the yawning legal gaps. When Pratt fled the US, it took years of international pursuit to hold him accountable. In the deepfake sphere, many countries still lack laws that explicitly criminalize nonconsensual AI porn, leaving survivors with little recourse. Online identity—once thought stable—is vulnerable not only to physical coercion but now also to digital replication. And platform liability remains contested, not least because companies profit from porn while deepfake forums thrive in the gray zones of tech law, often shielded by anonymity and jurisdictional loopholes.
Together, these stories reveal a continuum of exploitation—physical and digital—that profits from erasing consent. They also reveal a new kind of survivor solidarity, where victims demand not only takedowns and compensation, but systemic change in how the internet is governed.
Pratt’s sentencing marks a moment where voices that were once silenced found power. Where lies became proof. Where exploitation, long hidden, was made visible. But the work is far from over. For every video taken down, for every case wound up in court, many more exist in shadows.
If this case is remembered for anything, let it be for the resilience of those who spoke, for the justice system’s capacity—however delayed—to respond, and for the urgent need to build laws, platforms and regulations that put people over profit. The internet may have enabled Pratt’s abuse, but the same network of advocacy, legal action and survivor testimony has brought him to heel.
As one woman said in court: “Today is the day we all get to reclaim our lives.”
