Law&Crime Sidebar - Colorado Doctor Allegedly Drugged, Raped Women Before Blackmailing Them with Revenge Porn

Episode Date: May 20, 2023

A Colorado doctor faces charges in 10 separate sexual assault-related cases with some alleged victims saying he drugged them and used naked photos of them to coerce a second date. Dr. Stephen Matthews has denied these allegations but his alleged victims claim otherwise. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber breaks down this disturbing case with criminal defense attorney Kathleen Bogenschutz.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A doctor is now accused of drugging and sexually assaulting multiple women he met on dating apps. Criminal Defense Attorney Kathleen Bogan Shoots comes on to get into the details of the state's case and a potential defense. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. We have to talk about the story of Dr. Stephen Matthews. Okay, so he's a 35-year-old cardiologist out of Colorado, and he is accused of drugging and sexually abusing multiple women that he met on dating apps. I'm going to give you a timeline of this. So back in March,

Matthews was charged with three counts of sexual assault of a woman he met on Hinge, which is a popular dating app. And she claims after a brunch where the two drank, they went back to his place, they hung out in his hot tub, and then she blacks out. She doesn't remember what happened. She comes to about 10 hours later with hickies on her chest and doesn't remember having any kind of sexual encounter with him. Then she said that when she didn't meet up with him for another date, he sent her nude photos of herself, revenge porn. While he told police that this was a consensual sexual encounter, he was ultimately arrested, okay? So now he's got a preliminary hearing in this case a few days ago, you know,

basically to see if there's enough evidence to go forward with trial. And as he's waiting outside of the courtroom, he is arrested again for now allegedly raping nine more women. And he was hit with 13 more sexual assault charges, ranging from no consent to drugging to the victim being in a helpless condition. So much to talk about here. So let me bring in Kathleen Bogan-shoots, criminal defense attorney who's been on the program before. Kathleen, it's great to have you on here. I don't even know where to start first. I'll first

start with him being arrested outside of court. Have you ever seen anything like that? Yeah. Yeah, I have. So your viewers who might not be law enforcement or prosecutors or something in that ilk, I mean, it's really common to arrest somebody outside of court because you know where they're going to be, right? You don't need to track them down. You know they're going to be away from many weapons. They've got to go through security. And like there's a date and a time they need to be there. It's a great way to arrest somebody and not put any law enforcement at risk. Well, his attorney said this was nothing more than a public spectacle. He said it's something that they did not have to do. They had him arrested right in the hallway. That was not necessary

for public safety or any other reason than to create a public spectacle. What's your comments on that? I mean, they're going to argue what they're going to argue. I always liked to arrest people at court because I knew they had gone through the metal detectors. I knew that it wasn't going to be a big scene. I knew that the cops wouldn't have to worry about family members at the house, controlling the scene, those kinds of things. So in my opinion, and at least when I was a prosecutor, I used to encourage cops to do that. Now, in this case, it's high profile, so the media was there, which is, I'm assuming, what is going to complain about. Yeah, they were watching him. They had the tape on him.

And then his family, I think, was there as well. I want to talk to you about what goes into prosecuting a case like this. Now, some of the victims did seek medical help, and there appears to be documentation after these alleged incidents, which I imagine is going to be a prosecutor's dream. Walk me through what is going to go into prosecuting this man for all of these alleged different crimes. So the first thing that comes to mind is dates and times because you've got statutes limitations a lot of times on adult victims. These are all relatively recently. I think the earliest one that I saw was dated in 2019. So you are likely fine on that. And then you've got so

many substantial similarities. Our practice was always to file the cases separately and then file a motion to, in Florida, it's called Williams Rule. In other states, it's called 404B evidence. But to bring in those other cases to show that there's a pattern of conduct, a common scheme or plan, the fact, I mean, some of these cases are like, they're like fingerprints. Meet on a dating app that you gave them to, even down to the drinks, tequila, mimoses, the hot tub was involved. They were playing jenga back at his apartment i mean it's it is like cookie cutter crimes here do you think that it's necessary for all of these alleged victims to testify against him in order to prove the case because i'm almost reminded in a way very very very different case but we covered the zachary wester trial

where that was a police officer that planted drugs in people's cars and i can't even tell you how many people testified against them about what that what happened to them and it makes me wonder is this going to be a case where all of them are necessary to come forward and testify about what happened to them. So, you know, one of the lawyers that my firm actually defended Mr. Wester. It's a couple counties west here. Well, in terms of a conflict of interest, I won't ask you about that case. I'll comment on the other cases. Yeah, just to say, I'm not going to comment on Wester. But as far as Williams rule or 404B evidence, you're far more likely to get a case reversed on that if you're a prosecutor than pretty much any other thing.

So you want to be very careful. You want to pick and choose your best cases, your most similar cases, and not do too much. You can't make it what's called a feature of the case. So in cases where I used to use it, I would be extremely careful. Like you would put the other victim on the stand and say, did he touch you? Yes, where, yes, and get them off within 15 minutes. Like you don't make a big deal. Is that because the concern is that if the testimony of one of the,

these alleged victims is maybe not as strong as the other that could jeopardize the whole case? Yes. And then you've also got the factor that at least in my jurisdiction, if you prosecute one individual case and you use Williams rule to help convict case number one, if you go forward on that second case that you utilized as part of Williams rule, and that case is lost. It becomes an appellate issue in case one. So you have to sit down with all the victims and you need to be strategic about what cases you're trying at the same time. So you're saying there is a possibility that they won't all try one trial, one jury deciding all of these counts.

They might separate them. Yes. That's what I think is the safest thing to do. And I think that you pick your best cases for Williams rule. The fact is that there are a couple of cases where it seems like one of the girls that young women who was brought over to his apartment suddenly realized that, oh, my gosh, this is the same guy that raped my friend three years ago. And I saw that in one of the police reports.

And that one, I'm not quite sure what to do with that as far as Williams will because she obviously heard about it from a friend of hers prior to it. So maybe not use that one. The role of him being a doctor, a cardiologist, aside from the fact that the headline is chilling to think about a member of the medical profession, someone who's supposed to care for people and help people, is accused of actually assaulting and abusing them. The fact that he was a man of medicine, how do you think that's going to play into this? Because my first thought is, if he really did drug them, that's a knowledge base on how to subdue them and what happens to the human body.

Oh, sure. I mean, it wouldn't shock me to find out there's subpoenas and search warrants flying for all of his DEA history for the past five or six years to see if there's any sort of change in what he's prescribing. It didn't mention whether he's surgical or interventional, I guess, as a cardiologist, and what things he might have access to at his practice. So it might be different depending on what type of cardiology he practices. But I'll bet you anything that they're looking into supplies at the office and whether inventory matches what they have in the cabinets and what you could possibly give to somebody, it seems like, orally,

because they're all alleging that it was potentially after a drink they had. Yeah, ingested. By the way, at the time of this recording, I'll let everybody know, he apparently still has his medical license, not facing any kind of disciplinary action in the medical field. Obviously, he's facing criminal charges. I wouldn't be surprised if that ultimately changes moving forward. We'll continue to monitor that.

I do want to talk about his defense a little bit. So his attorney, Doug Cohen, aside from saying that it was wrong for police to ultimately arrest him outside of court, he came out and said, quote, the case is about two adults who, like many folks these days, met online and had consensual sex. on their first date. Unfortunately, that lifestyle can result in buyer's remorse, jolted lovers and tall tales, but it is not a crime. The attorney also said that the government had no forensic medical evidence to prove

the accuser was too impaired to consent. We will defend him to the fullest. Your thoughts on that statement? Well, I'm assuming he made that statement when there was only one accuser because that's what it sounds like from what you said. And that's part of the thing that makes 404B evidence so powerful in court. You can almost get to a point where the jury's looking at it logically and saying, okay, how many times is lightning going to strike one guy? If all these girls have similar.

The counter argument to that would be is very similar to what we heard in other high profile sexual assault cases that as soon as one person comes forward and it becomes publicized, there could be people coming out of the woodwork to say, oh, the same thing happened to me and it's not true. I don't know if that, I mean, that seems like a little bit of a stretcher because it's not like he, just a devil's advocate, it's not like he's a major celebrity or a billionaire and everybody's trying to get payouts. I don't understand what the incentive would be for some, for one of these victims to come out and say that they were sexually assaulted when they weren't, but I'm just playing devil's advocate about what a potential defense could be. Well, and another thing that you would do, especially if you're going to, you know that the media is going to release this story, as a prosecutor, as a police officer, as a detective, what you would do is hold back some facts. You wouldn't give them all the facts in this. And one would keep all the victims away from each other so nobody could try to say, well, they all got in a room together while they were waiting to testify and got their story straight. So, and it's unfortunate for victims where have, you know, common offenders that you can't let them support each other, but you have to protect the case first. Kathleen Bogan shoots, what a case.

Thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate you taking the time. And let's continue to follow this and see where it progresses. Appreciate it, Kathleen. Thanks so much for having me. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube.

wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.