Ruben Andre Garcia, an adult film actor for the “GirlsDoPorn” website, has reportedly been sentenced to 20 years in prison and 10 years supervised release for participating in a human trafficking scheme.
#BREAKING GirlsDoPorn actor Andre Garcia sentenced to 20 years in prison and 10 years supervised release for his role in human trafficking scheme, significantly more than the 12 years feds recommended and 7 years he asked for
— Bianca Bruno (@BiancaDBruno) June 14, 2021
“GirlsDoPorn actor Andre Garcia sentenced to 20 years in prison and 10 years supervised released for his role in human trafficking scheme, significantly more than the 12 years feds recommended and 7 years he asked for,” Courthouse News reporter Bianca Bruno tweeted Monday.
Bruno added that during his sentencing hearing, Garcia “gave a short apology where he called the porn industry an ‘evil business,'” and said that “more than 20 Jane Does gave gut wrenching impact statements for the past few hours.”
In December 2020, as part of a plea deal, Garcia admitted that he worked from 2013 to 2019 as a “recruiter and adult film performer for GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys adult websites,” according to the FBI.
As part of the trafficking plot, Garcia, along with co-defendants Michael James Pratt and Matthew Isaac Wolfe, fraudulently coerced young women to appear in sex videos that were initially presented to them as modeling opportunities, according to a local news report. The videos were then posted online, without the victims’ permission.
The allegations and details of the case are disturbing. As the DOJ press release announcing Garcia’s guilty plea in December details, the women – who were often coerced and intimidated into making sex videos even after saying they didn’t want to – suffered physical injuries. Video shoots, held in hotel rooms or other short-term rentals, often took several hours, not the 30 minutes Garcia had initially promised them. Exits were blocked by camera and recording equipment, and if the victims changed their mind about participating in the video, Garcia and his co-conspirators threatened to sue them, cancel their flights home, or post the footage that was already filmed online, “which, unbeknownst to the victims, was going to happen anyway,” the DOJ said.
Garcia not only recruited young women from across the U.S. and Canada to participate in videos that he promised would never be posted online, but he also paid other young women to act as “references” for the websites, believing that potential victims “were more likely to believe other young women.” According to the DOJ, these references falsely reassured reluctant victims that no one would find out that they were in the videos, and they were paid for each victim they tried to recruit (and more for getting them to agree to film a video).
Garcia himself was paid “a commission for each victim that he recruited on top of an hourly wage for his time,” according to the DOJ. Garcia also admitted that he and his co-conspirators used aliases and companies with misleading names so that the victims couldn’t make the connection to the GirlsDoPorn website.
Meanwhile, the videos were posted to the GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys websites, as well as PornHub, one of the world’s most heavily-trafficked porn sites, according to the DOJ. The videos generated millions of dollars for the websites, and many of them were viewed millions of times.
Other employees, including a former bookkeeper and a cameraman, have also pleaded guilty. Pratt, who ran the website, is currently listed as a “fugitive” and is wanted by the FBI.
[Image via NBC7 San Diego]
