6 women targeted by serial Denver rapist sue Hinge, Tinder

She met him on Hinge. The two gathered for drinks in Denver’s Highland neighborhood in January 2023. Two shots later, Alexa said she was “completely intoxicated” at a level that did not match the number of drinks she had. She remembers tripping up the stairs to his apartment, but that’s where her memory of the night ends. She slowly pieced together what happened with her ruined clothes, home security camera footage, medical testing and social media sleuthing, Alexa said. Alexa is one of more than a dozen women who reported being assaulted by convicted serial rapist Dr. Stephen Matthews between 2019 and 2023. The former Denver cardiologist used dating apps to target and lure women, prosecutors said. The Denver Post is withholding Alexa’s full name because it does not identify victims of sexual assault. Matthews was convicted in August 2024 on 35 felony counts of assault and sexual assault and sentenced to 158 years in prison two months later. Now, some of his victims are coming forward after the dating apps that they say enabled Matthews’s attacks. Match Group’s apps, including Hinge and Tinder, were “designed with deliberate disregard for the foreseeable problem of rape,” the lawsuit stated. Match Group, a global leader in the dating app industry worth nearly $8 billion, ignored clear warning signs about predators like Matthews and failed to take basic steps to protect its users, according to the lawsuit. A coalition of law firms representing six of Matthews’ victims filed a lawsuit Tuesday against IAC, Match Group, Hinge, Tinder and Matthews in Denver District Court. Women reported being assaulted by Matthews to both Match Group and Hinge as early as September 2020, but the man continued to appear on the app using the same photos and identifying profile information for the next three years, according to the lawsuit. Staying Safe on Dating Apps After Dr. Stephen Matthews Case /*! This file is auto-generated */!function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i