A porn actor and producer for a now-defunct porn website in California has been slapped with 20 years in federal prison on Monday after he coerced young women into appearing in lewd videos.
Ruben Andre Garcia, 31, was sentenced for conspiracy and sex trafficking involving San Diego-based GirlsDoPorn (GDP) and GirlsDoToys (GDT) websites from 2013 to 2017 while working as their recruiter, producer, and actor in its porn movies. He was among six people tied to the charges of filming pornographic scenes made under coercive and fraudulent circumstances.
Garcia had pleaded guilty to federal charges last December, according to the Associated Press.
His co-defendants, Valorie Moser, who worked as the site's bookkeeper, and Theodore Wilfred Gyi, a cameraman, have also pleaded guilty to the federal charges. They await sentencing as the site’s co-creator, New Zealand resident Michael James Pratt, remains on the run. Police have placed a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to his capture.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Garcia and his co-defendants would lie to female victims, usually aged between 18 to 20, by claiming they will remain anonymous in the videos, which would only be distributed to GDP and GDT's private customers outside of the U.S. via DVDs rather than being proliferated online for public consumption.
Throughout the scheme, Garcia knew the representations were false and that the lewd videos would be posted on fee-based websites, with teasers also placed on free sites, including known porn sites like Pornhub.com that generate millions of views.
It has since emerged that some women were allegedly coerced or threatened into performing the sex scenes for the company's financial gains. Many of the women also had testified that Garcia had sexually assaulted them for years.
Had the women ever changed their minds on completing the porn films, the defendants would threaten to sue them for breaching contracts that identified the company under “innocuous names, such as Bubblegum Casting.”
The deceitful men would then terrorize the victims by cancelling their flights home or posting footage that had already been filmed to ridicule them online, according to authorities. Court documents also revealed that the victims were given alcohol or marijuana before shooting their porn contents, so they would openly perform more obscene activities.
The offenders would proceed to direct the victims to tape a recorded statement saying that they were not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol despite having smoked marijuana or drank alcohol.
Some of the victims noted that they attempted to end their own lives following the release of the videos, which ultimately destroyed familial relationships and employment prospects. They continue to seek mental health support to this day.
“Even when victims told Garcia how the scheme had devastated their lives, he showed no regard for their well-being,” acting U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said. “The crime was utterly callous in nature and there is no excuse or justification for his conduct, which was driven purely by greed.”
The website and its operators were sued by 22 female victims featured in their porn videos, with a San Diego judge awarding the women nearly $13 million in damages at the end of a months-long civil trial, according to the Times of San Diego.
Garcia will also be on supervised release for 10 years following the completion of his custodial term.
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