Kiwi jailed in United States after filming and uploading sex videos
Christchurch man Matthew Isaac Wolfe has been jailed for 14 years after previously admitting tricking young women in the US into appearing in sex videos before uploading them to a porn website.
His victims, who had been reassured the videos wouldn’t be uploaded to the internet, confronted him at the sentencing, with one saying he seemed harmless but had ruined her life.
Wolfe moved to the US in 2011 to work for his childhood friend, Michael Pratt, the owner of the GirlsDoPorn website.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Judge Janis Sammartino sentenced Wolfe to 14 years in prison for his involvement in Pratt’s company.
“It’s my view that you played an essential role,” Sammartino told Wolfe.
Wolfe and Pratt grew up together in New Zealand.
At the sentencing hearing, Wolfe’s lawyer, Jeremy Warren, said the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch left young people like Wolfe with few job prospects.
This is when Pratt offered Wolfe a job in San Diego.
Pratt paid for his flight, gave him an apartment and paid him $500 a week for technical help to run his business. But Wolfe eventually began filming videos, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
At least 25 women confronted Wolfe at the sentencing hearing about who he was just as guilty as Pratt.
One survivor said Wolfe “seemed harmless, but wrecked my entire life”. She spoke of the fallout from her video being posted on PornHub and “spread like cancer”.
Another woman spoke of how Wolfe intimidated and threatened her and still experiences “terrifying and realistic flashbacks”.
“The very first thing Mr Wolfe did when I met him was bolt the door,” she said. “I was an object to Mr Wolfe, not a human.”
Wolfe filmed about 100 videos. To persuade women to appear in those videos he admitted telling them they would never be posted online, never released in the US and that no one who knew the women would find out about the videos.
He went on to train co-defendant Theodore Gyi on how to run video shoots and told him to tell the women the videos would not be posted on the internet.
Wolfe further admitted he was aware personal identifying information and social media accounts for some women were posted on a website controlled by Pratt dedicated to “exposing” the true identities of individuals appearing in sex videos.
Even after becoming aware of this, Wolfe continued to assure women that no one would ever find out about their video shoot.
“This crime had a devastating impact on the victims,” US Attorney Randy Grossman previously said after Wolfe entered guilty pleas.
“We will seek justice for human trafficking victims in hopes that it will help them reclaim their lives and leave the pain of this experience in the past.”
Pratt was previously listed as one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives after he fled to Spain. He was arrested in Madrid pursuant to an Interpol Red Notice.
He has since been extradited back to San Diego to face numerous charges.
Pratt has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, production of child sex abuse material, sex trafficking of a minor and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.