SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Theodore Gyi, who was a videographer for the shuttered GirlsDoPorn website, pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court last week to a single count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and was sentenced to four years in prison.
According to a report last week by the local NBC station, a sentencing memorandum from Gyi's defense attorney stated that Gyi “did what he was told to do and lied to girls about where the videos would be seen when a girl asked him, or he was instructed to say, ‘I don't know’” and tell the models to ask GirlsDoPorn owner Michael Pratt or site operator Matthew Wolfe. “But the truth is that he did know that if Pratt or Wolfe decided that they were ‘A’ reel, then it would go on the internet.”
“To help convince them that the sex videos would not be posted on the internet, Gyi told some that he believed on-line pornography was ‘cheap,’” the prosecutors said through a statement.
Prosecutors told NBC 7 that Gyi had apologized to the victims.
The Mysterious Second Videographer
Gyi was not originally mentioned by name in the FBI investigation, which was dramatically unveiled in the middle of a civil trial in which 22 Jane Doe models sued Pratt and his GirlsDoPorn associates for damages.
Wolfe served as the main videographer for GirlsDoPorn during the years in question. On the stand during the civil trial, he said that he had filmed more than 100 adult videos for the site.
Eventually, however, Wolfe was replaced by someone the criminal complaint only lists as “Uncharged Co-Conspirator No. 1.” This second videographer was presumed by legal sources to be collaborating with the FBI, perhaps in exchange for leniency.
The only other GirlsDoPorn videographer who testified in early September in the civil trial was Gyi, who confirmed key aspects of the Jane Does' testimonies. Gyi is not mentioned by name by the FBI in the criminal probe.
As XBIZ reported, Wolfe, the second-in-command for the shuttered GirlsDoPorn website, pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court in July to a single count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.
The 40-year-old Wolfe “admitted to his role in the broad scheme that recruited numerous women under false pretenses for pornography,” the San Diego Union Tribune reported at the time.
Wolfe’s responsibilities, according to the report, included “running the day-to-day operations of the websites, managing the finances, marketing the content and serving as cameraman for about 100 videos.”
He was the main business associate of GDP owner Michael Pratt, the New Zealand national who escaped the U.S. before federal charges against the company and its employees were unsealed in 2019.
The January 2019 federal indictment against the site’s principals named Pratt, male talent and scout Ruben Andre "Dre" Garcia, Wolfe and three others, including Gyi, as co-conspirators in the GDP operation.
In December 2020, Garcia pleaded guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; and sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. In June 2021, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
GDP Owner One of the FBI's 'Ten Most Wanted'
Pratt remains a fugitive and is one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals. In early September, the FBI announced that it had placed him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, and doubled the reward for information leading to his arrest from $50,000 to $100,000.
The FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives page devoted to Pratt includes photographs, a downloadable “most wanted” poster and a summary of the case that states, “From approximately 2012 to 2019, Michael James Pratt and others allegedly participated in a conspiracy to recruit young adult and minor women to engage in commercial sex acts by force, fraud and coercion. Pratt and a co-conspirator owned and operated a pornography production company and online pornography websites, ‘GirlsDoPorn’ and ‘GirlsDoToys.’ Pratt and his co-conspirators allegedly recruited young women from around the United States and Canada by posting false internet advertisements for clothed modeling jobs, which the victims later discovered were pornographic productions.”
Pratt, the FBI posting continues, “also allegedly paid other young women working at his and his co-conspirators' direction to act as references and provide false assurances to the women that, if they filmed a pornographic video, the video would not be posted online. Some women were allegedly not permitted to leave the shooting locations until the videos were completed, others were allegedly forced to perform sex acts they had declined to perform, and some women were allegedly sexually assaulted.”
The Bureau is encouraging tipsters who may have any information concerning Pratt to contact the local FBI office or the nearest American embassy or consulate.
For XBIZ's ongoing coverage of the GDP case, click here.