TitleThreat of the use of force or of other forms of coercion, pornography industry
Assessed case number:United States v. Garcia, No. 3:19-cr-04488-JLS (S.D. Cal. Nov. 6, 2019)
Brief description of the caseThe defendant, Ruben Andre Garcia, has engaged in coercion, force and fraud to sexual exploit women with commercial acts. Between 2013 and 2019, he recruited young women to participate in commercial sex act videos, which were later posted on pornography websites, GirlsDoPorn (GDP), GirlsDoToys (GDT), and PornHub, without the women’s consent. He convinced the women usually stating that the material would not be posted online or be broadcasted within the U.S. or that it is not possible for someone who they knew to see the content.
Several other co-conspirators (Michael James Pratt, Matthew Isaac Wolfe, Theodore Wilfred Gyi, Valorie Moser, and others) participated in the sex trafficking conspiracy. The defendant, and a co-conspirator (Pratt), which also aided and abbetted in the recruitment of women, posted fake advertisements on Craiglist(an online advertisement website) for modelling jobs. In order to convince the victims who contacted the advertisement, all the defentants hired another women upon a fee, and if the victim agreed to be filmed, they made sure to further convince her by saying that the material would not be broadcasted online. Even though the victims complained because of painful sexual acts, the defendants continued filming in most situations through coercion, threat and force.