LOS ANGELES – A legal team led by Michael J. Bowe, the former attorney for Donald Trump and Jerry Falwell Jr., recently expanded its strategy in a series of ongoing legal actions against Aylo over user-uploaded content on Pornhub allegedly involving minors involved. directly involving financing companies that backed or worked with the company formerly known as Mindgeek.
Bowe’s latest move is to file lawsuits on behalf of eleven people who claim they were depicted in CSAM uploaded to Pornhub against Aylo, Visa and two hedge funds, Redwood Capital Management and Colbeck Capital Management.
The new lawsuits allege that the financial companies “knowingly profited from the content,” according to Reuters reported.
Last month, Bowe’s team altered the complaint in the Serena Fleites lawsuit – concerning the case raised by Nicholas Kristof and his Exodus Cry source Laila Micklewait in the sensational 2020 New York Times article “The Children of Pornhub” – to charge the hedge funds directly involved in the alleged crime.
Aylo told XBIZ: “Out of respect for the integrity of legal proceedings, it is our policy not to comment on pending litigation. We look forward to the facts being fully and fairly aired in that forum.”
As XBIZ reported, Bowe’s team filed a massive civil lawsuit in California in 2021 against Mindgeek, its officers and investors, on behalf of 34 women who alleged they were “trafficked” by the company in connection with allegedly illegal videos created by third parties uploaded to his flagship tube site.
The text of that lawsuit was shared via Twitter from Kristof’s private Google Drive. Anti-porn religious groups Exodus Cry and NCOSE (formerly Morality in Media) have sometimes taken credit for originating or being involved in Bowe’s legal actions. Both groups also received credit for Kristof’s reporting and slant.
Immediately after Kristof announced the existence of the lawsuit, the NCOSE Twitter account praised the journalist as an ally.
New York-based Bowe — who had a prominent role in the 2023 Netflix documentary “Money Shot: The Pornhub Story” — and fellow attorney Lauren Tabaksblat filed the lawsuits with the Orange County office of law firm Brown Rudnick.
Although these are civil cases, many of the complaints laid out by Bowe and the others are worded as criminal charges: violation of federal sex trafficking laws; receipt, transportation and distribution of child pornography; extortion; public disclosure of private facts; placing claimants in “false light”; common law misappropriation of likeness; legal misappropriation of likeness; distribution of private sexually explicit material; negligence; unjust enrichment; unfair competition; and civil conspiracy.
The 2021 lawsuit warned mainstream payment companies to stop doing business with adult content companies, alleging that the “U.S. credit companies and banks, including specifically Defendant Visa,” “also knowingly profited along with” Mindgeek and since they were ‘uniquely suited’ to stop this exploitation, but instead chose to participate in the profiteering,” they are also open to potential lawsuits from companies like Bowe’s.
Bowe’s naming-and-shaming strategy of financial companies coincides with the increased visibility of recent efforts led by the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) to end financial discrimination against sex workers and adult businesses, some of which have found receptive ears even among Republican parties. legislators.
A lucrative practice for a conservative ‘crusader’ lawyer
Bowe has given interviews to legal magazines highlighting his development of a new lucrative angle for litigants with these lawsuits.
While it is not clear who is funding Bowe’s various lawsuits against Aylo, NCOSE’s general counsel Benjamin Bull provided an explanation. interview last year to “porn accountability software” company Covenant Eyes, which appeared to allege that the organization had been involved in filing the Fleites case.
NCOSE’s web page contains forms where people can get information on how to sue tube sites for third-party content. After the publication of Kristof’s article, Mickelwait focused her activist efforts against Aylo and Pornhub on a self-founded nonprofit organization to connect potential plaintiffs with attorneys.
Bowe has also appeared with Mickelwait on several forums, and their efforts have also been vocally supported by controversial Wall Street investor Bill Ackman.
Bowe describes himself in his official professional biography as having “nearly 30 years of experience successfully litigating virtually every type of high-stakes business and personal matter, on both the plaintiff and defense sides, and on both the procedural and professional levels.” He also boasts that he has “saved many companies and wealthy individuals facing serious criminal and regulatory jeopardy.”
Bowe has mainly represented figures from the political right. During Trump’s impeachment trial in 2017, Bowe was added to the team based on that expertise. He also represented Fox News host Eric Bolling following media reports alleging that Bolling sent sexually inappropriate text messages. He also fought against Greenpeace on environmental issues.
Bowe, who has denied there is any religious component to his campaigns against Aylo and Pornhub, was profiled by the magazine of his alma mater, Bergen Catholic, for his commitment to religious causes in a regular column called “Crusader Profile”
Main image: Anti-Pornhub attorney Michael Bowe