Former Miss Teen Colorado runner-up Kristy Althaus sues Pornhub over explicit video ‘she was forced to make’ by ‘Girls Do Porn’ owner Michael Pratt, who she says drugged and raped her

A former Miss Teen Colorado runner-up has sued Pornhub after she says she was trafficked and raped by a notorious porn producer who was also an FBI Most Wanted fugitive.

Kristy Althaus, whose life and career were ruined when GirlsDoPorn released the X-rated footage she says she was coerced into filming at age 18, has filed a federal lawsuit demanding justice for the trauma she faced.

In the Sept. 8 filing, Althaus said she was raped multiple times in a hotel room over a 10-hour period after plying her with alcohol and drugs. She was left in a pool of blood caused by the repeated, violent nature of the sexual acts.

The teen claims she was lured in under the guise of a modeling shoot, and then promised by California-based GirlsDoPorn owner Michael Pratt that the film wouldn’t make it online.

But it was – and over the past decade, her non-consensual explicit videos have been viewed hundreds of millions of times around the world.

Althaus felt “trapped for her life” during the ordeal and claims that Pratt and his associates blackmailed her and threatened to kill her when she stopped making porn videos for them to distribute.

The defendants in the lawsuit are named Aylo, formerly known as MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub, and Ethical Capital Partners, a private equity firm that recently acquired Aylo.

It wasn’t until the Justice Department seized and shut down GirlsDoPorn and MindGeek that Althaus’s explicit videos were temporarily removed. But due to the nature of the internet, the clips were never completely deleted.

In the complaint, Althaus said she was recently attacked in her own home in June by a Pornhub subscriber who confronted her about the recent removal of her videos.

It stated that ‘unidentified men continue to approach her home day and night’ and that she ‘fears for her life’.

The lawsuit alleges that GirlsDoPorn “trafficked hundreds of high school and college-aged women for sex under the false pretense of a modeling shoot” and used “drugs, alcohol, fraud, coercion, intimidation, and threats of violence” against the women. to let them film explicit scenes.

Althaus had just graduated from high school in 2013 when she decided to pursue modeling.

She responded to a Craigslist ad and agreed to participate in a portrait and clothing photo shoot with a company she thought was reputable.

The 18-year-old flew from Colorado to San Diego for the shoot, and GirlsDoPorn paid for her flights. She said they told her she had the “right looks” for the modeling job.

It wasn’t until she was picked up from the airport by Pratt that he and his colleagues began coercing her into filming a live-action adult film.

She refused, but Pratt and his co-conspirators “immediately pressured her and plied her with booze and pills to assuage her reluctance,” the lawsuit said.

The defendants then told her the video would only be released on DVD and sold in Australia – saying it would not be posted online or released in the US.

While still giving her alcohol and marijuana, Pratt and his co-conspirator Andre Garcia got her into a car and took her to a hotel – before handing her a contract to sign for the vehicle.

Althaus claims she could not read it due to her “intoxicated state” but saw the words DVD and Australia in larger font than the rest of the words in the document.

The next thing she remembered was being in a hotel room with four strange men – Pratt, Garcia – the male performer for the video – Matthew Wolfe, and a man from lighting production.

According to the lawsuit, the hotel room was packed with film equipment, blocking the windows and doors, and she was not allowed to leave the bed and her phone was confiscated by Pratt.

At this point, “Pratt and his conspirators deceived, coerced, and coerced the plaintiff into performing sex acts on film.”

The lawsuit alleges, “The production of the video took approximately 9-10 hours, and included lengthy recordings of Plaintiff’s non-consensual sex, i.e. rape.”

Colorado native Althaus started bleeding from sex, but when she stained the sheets, they simply turned him to the clean side. Although she cried and asked to leave, the men told her she couldn’t until the filming was finished.

They shouted profanities at her including “stupid b***h” and “f***ing s**t” as she tried to escape the hotel room, the lawsuit claims.

In the following months, as Althaus went to college, Pratt began demanding that she make more videos. He sent her threatening text messages saying she would end up in a ‘graveyard’ if she didn’t comply. He also said he would release the video online.

“Out of fear and under duress, the plaintiff participated in additional videos,” the lawsuit said. She repeatedly told them to stop filming, and Pratt flew into a fit of rage and broke a lamp in the hotel room during the ordeal.

Pratt then showed her a gun that he had on his body as a threat. During the second admission, she also abused drugs and alcohol, the complaint said.

When the second video was finished, Pratt forced Althaus to perform oral sex on him in his car. He took her to his home and sexually assaulted her multiple times, even making her suck on his gun in a sexual manner, the lawsuit said.

After this, in January 2014, the porn company released her videos online without her consent. They went viral – and she was constantly harassed by people at university, forcing her to stay in her dorm room out of fear.

She received a text message: ‘Told you b***h’ from an anonymous number shortly before her X-rated clips started circulating on the internet.

GirlsDoPorn used an “aggressive marketing strategy” to ensure her videos were seen far and wide, including by her friends and family, the lawsuit alleges.

According to the lawsuit, they used the pageant’s title to their advantage to attract more viewers to her non-consensual sex scenes that she filmed at the age of 18.

In fact, her porn video was the second most viewed video on Pornhub for the year 2014.

She dropped out of college, changed her name, couldn’t get a job, and lost her first runner-up in the Miss Teen Colorado pageant.

In 2020, Girls Do Porn was ordered to pay $12.8 million in damages after a class action lawsuit accused the company of coercing and defrauding 22 women.

In October 2019, Pratt, Wolfe and Garcia were charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

Pratt fled to Spain and is awaiting extradition after being arrested by police.

Garcia pleaded guilty and received a 20-year prison sentence. Wolfe is in federal custody awaiting sentencing.