An eye-popping story about a soft-core pornographer and a U.S. Senate office may be too good to be true.

The founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series said he bought an internship with Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and plans to use it to send the winner of his "Search for the Hottest Girl in America" contest to Capitol Hill.

Of course, he said it's all about making a stand for women's rights.

"At this time more than ever, women need strong representation in Washington," said "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis in a news release this morning.  "Women's issues and rights have been completely assaulted by the Republican candidates during this year's Republican primaries."

Francis said he bid for the internship at a charity event for a temple in Los Angeles.

Officials in Pryor's office said it is a hoax and a publicity stunt, that they never put an internship up for auction and have no intention of allowing Francis to choose any of their upcoming interns.

In a statement to Buzzfeed, Pryor spokeswoman Lisa Ackerman said the senator wants to get law enforcement involved.

"Our office does not sell, auction or donate internships," Ackerman wrote. "We believe someone outside Sen. Pryor's office has broken the law by fraudulently impersonating a U.S. senator, fraudulently attempting to sell a government position and using the Senate seal without authorization. We have asked the FBI to fully investigate who is perpetrating this fraud against the senator and the U.S. Senate."

UPDATE: Francis insists that he bought the internship fair and square at an online charity auction, where he also bought two tickets to a USC football game. Francis would not tell us what charity the auction was benefiting, except to say it was for a Los Angeles area temple.

But we were able to find the actual auction item at the charity website biddingforgood.com in an auction to benefit the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. According to the listing, the internship was valued at $15,000. It was purchased for $2,500, even though the internship is advertised as unpaid. It is not clear from the website who posted the item.

According to the site, the bid was placed by a user called "dgoldb" and sold to a user called "pguber."

See the listing here.