A former Seattle freelance journalist, facing rape charges, has been sued by the state Attorney General’s Office, alleging he used his businesses to trick women into posing nude and having sex with him.
A freelance tech journalist and photographer charged with raping three women in Seattle has been sued by the Washington Attorney General’s Office for allegedly running a series of fraudulent businesses created solely to trick women into posing nude and having sex with him.
Michael-Jon Matthew “Matt” Hickey is accused of multiple violations of the state’s Consumer Protection Act and the Commercial Electronic Mail Act for his role in creating and operating a series of Seattle businesses, including New Seattle Talent, West Coast Talent, Casting Seattle, FMH Modeling and Active Entertainment.
The complaint, filed in King County Superior Court, alleges Hickey used a variety of social media to advertise himself as a talent scout for the adult-entertainment industry, promising to help women find lucrative work but actually trolling for sex victims, with no intention of keeping his word.
“This is one of the most egregious scams I’ve seen,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a news release. “Beyond the monetary damage his victims suffered pursuing the defendant’s fictional job opportunities, they endured emotional trauma and unconscionable loss of privacy through his deception.”
The lawsuit alleges Hickey posed as a woman named Deja Stwalley, contacting women via social-media sites and claiming that her business, New Seattle Talent, was a “woman-owned” recruiting agency offering to connect women with high-paying jobs in the adult-entertainment industry.
He went to pains to appear legitimate, the lawsuit alleges, using fake business websites, email addresses and a Google Voice number with a Las Vegas area code, according to the attorney general’s lawsuit.
It claims that Hickey would identify young women between the ages of 17 and 25 on Facebook, then contact them posing as Stwalley and lure them in, telling them they could earn between $1,200 and $3,500 a day. To be considered, they would have to “audition with one of our specially chosen ‘hunks,’ ” according to the lawsuit.
The 36-page lawsuit includes screenshots of some of the Facebook Messenger conversations between victims and Hickey/Stwalley.
The ruse was revealed in an article that appeared in The Stranger newspaper. The newspaper reported that Hickey lured six women to his Capitol Hill apartment, where the women were told they would have to audition by having sex with him, according to the criminal charges. Three of the women did so, while three did not, the charges say.
The Stranger described Hickey as a tech journalist who has done freelance work for the newspaper.
When a victim would apply, Hickey would conduct “interviews,” tricking the women into signing a photo release and promising that any nude photographs were for internal business use only, according to the attorney general’s lawsuit.
“In fact, Hickey used these photos for his own purposes, and to this day, the photos still appear online,” the attorney general’s office said.
The lawsuit asks the court to order Hickey to stop his deceptive practices, provide restitution to victims and impose civil penalties of up to $2,000 per violation. Each unfair or deceptive act Hickey committed in furtherance of his “business” could constitute a separate Consumer Protection Act violation.
Hickey was charged in October with raping three women, but only one of them — a now 19-year-old who was raped in August 2014 — met Hickey through the porn ruse and went to his apartment so he could photograph her in lingerie, according to the criminal charges.
Hickey, a former Seattle resident, was arrested in October in Las Vegas and is being held in the King County Jail.
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