One of the major ringleaders of the Girls Do Porn operation pleaded guilty in federal court on Tuesday to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion. 

Matthew Isaac Wolfe was the co-conspirator and lead videographer for Girls Do Porn, a criminal operation masquerading as a pornography studio that recorded and disseminated sex tapes of potentially hundreds of women over nearly eight years. 

Wolfe’s charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $250,000 fine, but his sentencing will occur at a later date. 

"Today was a good day for all of the victims,” Brian Holm, the attorney who represented the women in the civil trial, told Motherboard. 

The operators of Girls Do Porn lured victims—many of them still in college, some under or just barely of legal age—from across the country to hotel rooms in San Diego, with the promise of making fast money in “modeling.” Many of the women weren’t informed that they were walking into a porn shoot, and some were physically or sexually abused, harassed, and intimidated into enduring lengthy, aggressive sex sessions once they arrived.

The women were told that these videos would never see audiences in the U.S., and that they would remain with private collectors in places like New Zealand or Australia. The operators uploaded the videos to mainstream porn websites almost immediately after filming them, to massively popular sites like Pornhub, where they reached millions of viewers and friends and family saw them. In some cases, this experience destroyed their lives and continues to haunt them. 

“This crime had a devastating impact on the victims,” U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said in a press release. “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.”

“Wolfe lied to and preyed on vulnerable young women, subjecting them to years of relentless harassment, fear and mental anguish,” Stacey Moy, special agent in charge of the FBI San Diego Field Office, said in the release.

In 2019, the owners of Girls Do Porn were found guilty of intimidating and coercing 22 women into these videos. Fifty women sued Mindgeek, Pornhub’s parent company, for failing to moderate these videos; that case settled.

In December 2021, courts ordered that the women in the Girls Do Porn and affiliated Girls Do Toys videos own all the rights to their images, likenesses, videos, and copyrights. 

Wolfe is the latest in a string of guilty pleas from Girls Do Porn conspirators. In December 2020, the male performer in the videos, Ruben Andre Garcia, similarly pleaded guilty to federal counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. Teddy Gyi, the production’s cameraman, pleaded guilty to the same in January 2021. Valerie Moser, an administrative assistant who helped Wolfe, Garcia, and their co-conspirator Michael Pratt coerce women into appearing in the shoots, pleaded guilty in April 2021.   

Pratt, considered the leader of the group, is still on the run. While his co-conspirators were being taken into custody, Pratt allegedly fled the country ahead of the trial, and has been on the FBI’s most wanted list since 2020, with the current reward for his whereabouts set at $50,000. Wolfe has been wiring Pratt funds, according to the FBI.  

“It shouldn't have taken nearly three years for it to occur but we're happy it did,” Holm said. “Our focus now turns to finding Michael Pratt."

The Oath Keepers’ trial for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection kicks off Tuesday. And it’s going to be weird. 

That’s because the leader of the far-right militant group, Stewart Rhodes, had a public blow-up with his own lawyers just a couple weeks ago. Now, Rhodes will be fighting for his freedom with an awkwardly divided legal team that has told the judge it’s flat-out not ready. 

“Neither Rhodes nor any of his attorneys are prepared for trial,” Rhodes’ new attorney, Edward Tapley, told the judge in September—even though Rhodes was indicted back in January. 

Prosecutors allege that Rhodes and four co-conspirators intended to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2021, by joining in the attack on the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

They’ve been accused of seditious conspiracy, a rare felony defined as an attempt to “overthrow, put down or to destroy by force the government of the United States.” 

In response, Rhodes’ lawyers have signaled they plan to raise an unusual defense: that the group believed Trump was about to ask them to intervene in the situation using a centuries-old law called the Insurrection Act. 

Whether Rhodes’ attorneys are ready or not, jury selection starts Tuesday. The defendants have all pleaded not guilty. If convicted, the Oath Keepers could spend as long as 20 years in prison. 

The Oath Keepers were early supporters in the broader Stop the Steal movement, and Rhodes pushed his group to oppose Biden’s November 2020 win, according to the indictment. Rhodes allegedly attempted to contact Trump on Jan. 6 via an individual who wasn’t named in court documents to try to get the president to call for groups like the Oath Keepers to fight to keep Biden from taking power. 

Rhodes, 57, is a former Army paratrooper and a graduate of Yale Law School who founded the Oath Keepers in 2009. The group’s members, largely drawn from the ranks of the military and law enforcement, swear an oath to defend the Constitution from what they view as government overreach—like taking away Americans’ guns or even forcing them into concentration camps, according to the group. 

On the day of the Capitol riot, Rhodes entered a restricted area of the grounds and “directed his followers to meet him at the Capitol,” the indictment says. Other members of his group formed a “stack” formation and surged into the Capitol Building, prosecutors allege.

The government has historically struggled with seditious conspiracy cases, according to Brandon Fox, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and now a partner at law firm Jenner & Block.

“The government has failed in the past when the jury hasn’t believed it [the defendants’ rhetoric] was serious—when the jury thought it was bluster and that the people involved weren’t going to do what they said they were going to do,” Fox told VICE News. 

The fact that Jan. 6 involved real-life violence at the Capitol, which resulted in several deaths, will help the government show how serious this incident was, Fox said. 

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Tom E. Puskar)

The last time the DOJ convicted anyone of seditious conspiracy was in 1995, when the department went after the organizers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. That time, the perpetrators were Omar Abdel-Rahman, aka “The Blind Sheikh,” and his co-conspirators.

Yet the DOJ has an advantage in its current case against Rhodes: It’ll be going up against a defense team in chaos. 

Rhodes will also be represented by two lawyers he now claims he wants nothing to do with, following a “near-complete breakdown” in their communication, according to one of his lawyers. They’ll be joined at the same table by a newly hired third lawyer, whom Rhodes sought to insert as  replacements for the other two in a bizarre and contentious pretrial hearing just a couple weeks ago. 

District Court Judge Amit Mehta rebuffed Rhodes’ request to ditch his old lawyers, rejected his attempt to delay trial, and blasted Rhodes’ “incorrect and, frankly, bewildering” justifications for the delay. 

The law, originally enacted in 1792 and updated over the following century, gives the president the power to deploy the military domestically and use it for law enforcement—in particular to combat civil disorder, insurrection, or rebellion. 

But the provision is controversial and hardly straightforward. Key terms like “insurrection” and “rebellion” are not defined in the text of the law, and it’s in “urgent need of reform,” according to a recent analysis of the Insurrection Act by the Brennan Center for Justice. 

On Thursday, Mehta ruled that he would allow the defendants to argue they believed they were taking actions in preparation for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. But they can’t state that the president definitively had the authority to invoke the act. “That is a legal question,” Mehta said. 

Prosecutors may show the defendants are trying to use the Insurrection Act as “legal cover” for actions they were going to take anyway, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Hughes told Mehta on Thursday, Bloomberg reported.  

“What the government will try to prove is that they knew they were violating the law,” Fox said. 

For the DOJ, failure to secure a conviction would be a public face-plant in the department’s attempt to respond to Jan. 6. But it also won’t be their last chance. 

Another batch of four individuals linked to the Oath Keepers will go on trial Nov. 29, and high-profile leaders of the far-right Proud Boys will go on trial in mid-December.

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Police in the city of Rosenberg, Texas, were searching for a group of Black male teenagers when they pulled over an older Black couple in their vehicle one night in November 2020. But instead of letting the couple go, when they clearly didn’t fit the description of the kids, the police handcuffed them at gunpoint, searched them, and confiscated and destroyed their belongings, including vital medical equipment.

Now the couple, Michael Lewis, 67, and Regina Armstead, 57, have filed a lawsuit against the officers, the police department, and the city of Rosenberg for violating their Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizures.

“Everybody should be treated fairly, and I feel like that night we were not treated fairly,” Armstead told VICE News. “We hope this will be a warning to them and for other Black people and people of color around here.”

On the evening of Nov. 6, 2020, police received an emergency call about a group of Black teens on the south side of town who allegedly flashed guns at another group of kids before driving off in a white vehicle with tinted windows and black rims, according to a copy of the lawsuit shared with VICE News. Five officers responded to the call.

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Around the same time, Lewis and Armstead were driving home in their white Dodge Charger with silver hubcaps after picking up food at a local restaurant, according to the lawsuit. Armstead, who was driving, noticed at least three police cars with their lights and sirens on behind them.

The cops used their vehicle’s loudspeaker to order the vehicle to pull over, the lawsuit reads. They then asked Armstead to throw the car keys out of the driver's-side window, exit the car on her knees, and pace backward toward them with her hands up. After she closed the 30-foot gap between her car and the cops’, one of the officers handcuffed her while two others pointed their guns at her.

Realizing that she and her partner were being arrested, Armstead told officers that Lewis has kidney disease, according to the lawsuit. The ailment is managed through a device called an AV fistula embedded in his left forearm, so he couldn’t have tight restraints on his wrists.

But instead of listening to her warning, they placed Armstead in the back of a police vehicle while four other officers, one holding an assault rifle, ordered Lewis out of the car, handcuffed him anyway, and placed him in a police car, according to the lawsuit.

For the full 45-minute traffic stop, the couple remained handcuffed while officers searched their vehicle without requesting or receiving their consent. The officers also confiscated Armstead’s cellphone. 

Only after officers realized there weren’t any weapons or contraband in the vehicle were the restraints removed and the couple was allowed to leave the scene. When they asked what the stop was for, the cops said they’d been searching for three young men who had been “driving around and shooting at kids.” The items that were confiscated by the cops were returned hours later, but the fob used to start the car had been destroyed.

Lewis had to get three medical procedures to replace the fistula in his wrist, causing “prolonged pain and suffering,” the lawsuit says.

The couple said to this day they feel anxious anytime they see a police officer.

“Ever since they pulled us over that night with all those guns and stuff, we can’t even stand to drive down that street,” Lewis told VICE News. “We go the other way around because they might stop us again.”

The couple’s lawsuit claims the offenses against them reflect larger issues with the department: Officers who violate departmental policy by conducting warrantless searches of vehicles are not disciplined, and are in fact encouraged to do so when making an arrest.

The lawsuit lists at least 26 civilian complaints going back to 2017 that accused the department of stopping and searching people without cause.

Armstead and Lewis are also suing the department for violating the American Disabilities Act by not accommodating Lewis’ disability, and for wrongfully seizing their property without cause under state law. The couple is asking for monetary compensation as well as for the department to adopt a policy mandating the use of body and dashboard cameras.

Neither the city of Rosenberg nor the Rosenberg Police Department responded to a request for comment about the lawsuit. 

Incidents recorded on bystander video, reported in local media, or documented through dozens of civilian complaints show that the Rosenberg Police Department has a history of using excessive force when interacting with the public, and detaining people for longer than necessary.

A complaint filed just a few weeks before Armstead and Lewis’ encounter and shared with VICE News claims RPD officers pulled up to a location where people were filming a music video with their weapons drawn.

Last year, a disabled senior filed a lawsuit against the city and seven of its police officers after the officers allegedly detained him without warning. The lawsuit claims the officers took him to the ground and accused him of resisting arrest.

In 2017, the department settled with a couple who accused officers of forcefully pulling them out of their car and using excessive force. Cellphone video of the encounter shows officers punching the husband twice and leaving him bloodied, as someone off camera screams, “Dad, chill out.” It also shows another officer with a taser drawn and pointing it offscreen.

That same year, a father of three filed a complaint against the department saying officers stopped him and his three children for nearly an hour while trying to investigate whether someone tossed a piece of garbage out of the car window.

From January 2017 through April 2022, police have killed 589 people during traffic stops, and  Black people make up 28 percent of those deaths, according to the Guardian. Some cities, like St. Paul and San Francisco, have deprioritized prosecuting cases that stem from traffic stops in hopes of incentivizing cops from seeking arrests that way.

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Ruja Ignatova, also known as “Cryptoqueen,” has been added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive list for allegedly defrauding billions of dollars from investors all over the world. 

Ignatova, who ran a pyramid-scheme scam in the form of Bulgarian cryptocurrency company OneCoin Ltd., is the first crypto criminal to land the FBI’s Most Wanted List and the eleventh woman to join the list in its 72-year history. The scam is believed to have defrauded victims out of more than $4 billion. 

Ignatova founded OneCoin in 2014, claiming the new virtual currency would kill off Bitcoin. In marketing the cryptocurrency, Ignatova allegedly made false statements and representations about the company, including that OneCoin had a private blockchain. 

“This is in contrast to other virtual currencies, which have a decentralized and public blockchain. In this case, investors were just asked to trust OneCoin,” said FBI Special Agent Ronald Shimko, who is investigating the case out of the FBI’s New York Field Office.

The blockchain was “private” because OneCoin, in reality, did not have a blockchain at all—an essential component of cryptocurrency systems. 

With this information kept under wraps, Ignatova was able to woo crowds with her stage presence and false promises made regarding the benefits of OneCoin. In 2016, Ignatova appeared on stage at England’s Wembley Arena in a ballgown and diamond earrings, telling fans that OneCoin was on the course to become the world’s biggest cryptocurrency. 

Victims would wire investment funds to their OneCoin accounts to purchase crypto packages, but never saw any returns in cash. Soon, investors became suspicious and scheduled a meeting with Ignatova at a gathering of European OneCoin promoters in Lisbon, Portugal in October 2017. She never showed up. 

The FBI reports that Ignatova traveled from Sofia, Bulgaria to Athens, Greece on October 25, 2017, and may have traveled somewhere else after that. About two weeks prior, the United States District Court of New York issued a federal warrant for her arrest. In February 2018, Ignatova was indicted on five counts, including Wire Fraud and Securities Fraud. 

Since going on the run five years ago, Ignatova has found herself on two “Most Wanted” lists. In addition to being added to the FBI’s Most Wanted List, the ‘Cryptoqueen’ was put on Europe’s Most Wanted Fugitives List in May 2022. The FBI is offering up to $100,000 for information on her whereabouts, while Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, is offering €5,000 for information. 

Journalist Jamie Bartlett, the creator of the Missing Cryptoqueen podcast, has been trying to locate Ignatova since 2019. He hopes Ignatova can be caught soon, believing it will set a good precedent to those who intend on pursuing crypto scams. He told VICE World News: “Her arrest and conviction is the one thing that might actually stop crypto scams because it would send out a powerful warning to people to be wary.”