SEATTLE (AP/WSVN) — A Seattle man is accused of posing as a porn recruiter and tricking women into having sex with him. Now he can add a consumer protection complaint to the criminal rape charges he is facing.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Wednesday that he sued Michael-Jon Matthew Hickey under the state Consumer Protection Act and the Commercial Electronic Mail Act, seeking restitution and thousands of dollars in penalties.
Hickey’s been held on $200,000 bail at the King County Jail on three counts of second-degree rape since his arrest in Las Vegas in October.
Authorities say he created deceptive email accounts and websites; posed as a photographer for a female-owned adult industry talent agency; and persuaded women to pose nude and have sex with him as part of a phony “audition.”
The state Attorney General’s office said Hickey’s scheme went on for nearly a decade. He allegedly identified young women between the ages of 17 and 25 on Facebook, and contacted them through a fake account to offer them the opportunity to audition for an adult film studio.
Posing as the female owner of the talent agency, Hickey would message the women, telling them they “TOTALLY have the look they’re going for” and convincing the victims that they could earn up to $3,500 per day.
The complaint says he conducted the interviews by posing as the owner’s photographer, first holding a job interview, followed by a nude photo shoot he claimed would be used for scouting purposes. Finally, the women were told to audition by having sex with Hickey as part of an “attitude test” to secure work in the adult film industry.
Ferguson said Hickey even went so far as to create another fake profile, posing as an actress who secured work through the talent agency, in order to serve as an endorsement of the business.
“This is one of the most egregious scams I’ve seen as Attorney General,” Ferguson said. “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.”
Hickey’s criminal defense attorney, James Bible, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
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