I am glad there were felonies indictments on this case.. Hickey should had charged with numerous felonies..

Sydney, you should get a journalist award (s) for your articles about this. It is prize winning material..

About goddamn time so ashamed I used to work next to that creepy sad excuse for a man. Yuck!

Sydney, I can't thank you enough for all you've done to move this forward. It's sickening and horrifying and so important. THANK YOU.

Great! I'm a little confused, though. The article didn't say if he posted that large amount of bail and if at large, or if he's in custody, or what. Last "The Stranger" told us, he was in Las Vegas -- was he arrested there?

Best news of the day. Im surprised (and sad im surprised) but happy that WA is taking this seriously and charging him.

So glad.

I'm interested to see if any of his defenders will appear on this thread, or if they were all sock puppets.

@8 Byrd was in this account: http://www.thestranger.com/features/2016…

Even more confusing, he is the third name on this list of King County Deaths: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/obits/art…

It doesn't look like he's in custody, based on the filing documents. The first paragraph says they're "pursuing an order directing the summons or warrant for the arrest of the defendant."

Good.

@10: The prosecutor requested that bail be set at $200k for the reasons stated. It's up to the judge to decide whether to use that number or go with another one. So I don't think bail has yet been set.

@11 did some googling, that's a different Matthew James Hickey who died on 9/28.

@11 You roused my curiosity, so I did some searching.

The Matthew James Hickey who passed away on September 28 is this guy: https://www.facebook.com/matthew.hickey.… His Facebook page is pretty sad: He was posting about a fairly minor workplace injury one day and dead the next.

The total asshole charged with the sex crimes is a different fellow named Michael-Jon Matthew Hickey. Ironically, he seems to have been begging for money to fix his asshole problem recently (a cyst on his butt, not the fact that he an asshole himself): https://www.gofundme.com/ButtCyst He signs that MJ M Hickey and the photo on that page seems to match one from his days at the stranger. So, our rapey "friend" seems to be the asshole with the asshole problem that he got others to pay to fix, not the probably really nice guy who passed away.

I only posted the link to the Facebook page of the gentleman who passed away to encourage people not to confuse the two and do any thing dumb like posting something mean on the funeral home's guest book, but I'm wondering if I may have done the wrong thing by linking his Facebook page to this story at all.

As for M-J Matthew Hickey, he's a jerk and I wish the prosecutors luck, but my impression is that intoxication rape is very hard to prove. In the absence of video or spectators, the prosecution's only witness is almost by definition someone who doesn't remember what happened well, if at all. Try not to blame the prosecutors if they agree to a fairly lenient plea bargain.

Of course, they are criminal prosecutors, know their burdens better than I ever will, and they may have dynamite evidence I'm not aware of, but I just don't think they'll be able to take a very hard line on this guy. Happy to be proven wrong though.

For the life of me, why would someone want to have sex with someone unconscious. Both conscious is the very best. (You get memories too).

@20 Because rape isn't about sex, it's about power.

@5, @10,

From the looks of the criminal complaint, he is not yet in custody. The state has requested that bail be set at $200k, and is seeking to have a warrant or summons issued for his arrest, after which time he'll either make bail or be held in custody pending trial.

If he has family with $200k or more of equity in a home, they could put it up as collateral to secure a bail bond for a reasonable amount of money. Things are not looking good for him, though. I predict a plea bargain, fines, maaaaybe a couple months in jail (possibly suspended) and a lifetime enrollment on the sex offender registry.

Who are these defenders you're talking about?

@22 "If he has family with $200k or more of equity in a home, they could put it up as collateral to secure a bail bond for a reasonable amount of money. "

Most Bail Bonds are around 10% of the bail, unless the Judge orders a full cash bail. The rules are different for Federal Criminal Cases.. So the equity that has to be put up will be around $20k unless the Judge lowers the bail or releases HIckey on his own personal recognizance.

This was really good reporting! Glad they charged the bastard

Whoa - great work!

@21) If rape weren't about sex, it would not be called a sex-crime. Rape is, by the very definition, sex without consent. It is impossible to criminally rape someone without the sex part. The role of power may be a factor in the rapist's mind, but that does not alter what the crime of rape is about. Applying contorted semantics to remove the "icky sex part" of the conversation trivializes the horrific nature of the crime.

Sydney, all of Seattle should be proud of the work you have done here. It's Pulitzer quality stuff!

@27 " If rape weren't about sex it would not be called a sex-crime. " Rape is not about sex. Rape is about assault and total control over a person. The one way a person can show total control over a victim is controlling the victim's genital area. It is primarily physical assault crime, combine with making the victim helpless and terrified.

Much like coercion to rape can be both physical coercion like the use of violence or the threat of violence, or verbal coercion. Matt Hickey used verbal coercion to rape his victims, but it still doesn't diminished he violently rape his victims..

Rape is about both sex and power, you twits.

It's at least proven that he uses deceit to trick people into meeting him.
Also, for all of you out there, there's nothing on the porn industry that says you have to be able to have sex with strangers.
What the industry cares about is if you can reasonably perform on command while being filmed while acting fairly well and in synchronicity with your choice of partner. (meaning that your choice of partner can do it as well)
And if you can do it in as few takes as possible taking not a lot of time.
And that's what they would want to test, give you a simple script for your and your partner to follow in as few takes as possible and with changes given by a director.
You both can take a while to get in character and even a few takes, just as in any acting.