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Seattle Man Accused of Using Social Media To Set Up Fake Porn Agency (nbcnews.com)
The Washington State Attorney General's Office has charged a Seattle man for setting up a fake talent agency for adult entertainers in order to trick women into posing nude and having sex with him. NBC News reports: Michael-Jon Matthew Hickey is accused of creating a fictitious business and using deceptive ads with bogus employment offers to find his victims. The lawsuit alleges Hickey offered and advertised commercial services solely for his "own personal gain" and to "satisfy his sexual desires" with no intention of following through on the promised services to help these women find jobs. Hickey, a 40-year old technology blogger and aspiring photographer, is charged with numerous violations of the Washington Consumer Protection Act and the Commercial Electronic Mail Act. Assistant Attorney General Andrea Alegrett, who is handling the consumer protection case, told NBC News Hickey had developed "a sophisticated scam" which involved fake business websites, fictional people, and bogus contact information. The lawsuit alleges Hickey pretended to be a woman named Deja Stwalley, who claimed to live in Las Vegas where she ran a number of talent companies, including New Seattle Talent, West Coast Talent and FMH Modeling. The New SeattleTalent website stated: "We work as recruiters and scouts for some of the top studios in the Northwest. Our goal is to be the top recruiting group for girls in America. We're woman-founded and woman-owned, and take the talent's safety and welfare seriously." Hickey, posing as Stwalley, would contact women between the ages of 17 and 25 via Facebook and offer them a chance to audition for an adult film studio. Stwalley assured each woman that they "TOTALLY have the look they're going for" and could earn between $1,200 and $3,500 a day, the AG's complaint alleges. Digital Security expert Adam Levin, Chairman and founder of Identity Theft 911, said this case shows just how easy it is for someone to use social media for fraudulent purposes.
If he filmed any sex acts with a 17 year old, he's done. Even if he didn't film them, kindly locate for me a jury who will provide anything less than the maximum available penalties as soon as the words "minor child", "fraud", "sex", and "rape" are uttered together.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
...ever since the invention of Photography.
How many young girls haven't been lured from the promise of a model career, but can't afford to pay the photographer or agents, and gets into the hands of fake agents and "hobby photographers" with professional looking gear.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
The only one making the mental jump from contacting 17 year olds, to raping them and possibly filming it, is you. Even the AG isn't being that absurd.
Sheesh, if he'd bought a $500 HD camera and a couple of lights, he could have made actual porn and turned a profit while still having fun.
"there's some question if the ladies claimed rape only after the fraud"
Wait, if it's rape by fraud, wouldn't you expect the ladies to complain only after they became aware of the fraud?
"there's some question if the ladies claimed rape only after the fraud"
Wait, if it's rape by fraud, wouldn't you expect the ladies to complain only after they became aware of the fraud?
I'm curious about this "rape by fraud" thing.
Are you saying that someone who is convinced to have sex by fraudulent means, and who later finds out that there was fraud involved, can claim it was "rape" by reason of the fraudulent circumstances?
How far does this go? If a man tells a women he's rich and she has sex with him, can she claim it was rape by fraud if she finds out he's a blue-collar worker?
On the topic of the OP, if there were legitimate rape charges I would *expect* the charges to be filed notwithstanding the circumstances of the business. I cannot imagine any of the rape charges being legitimate if the women only come forward after realizing that they were defrauded(*).
I always thought rape was "sex without consent". Is that no longer true?
(*) Presumably these women were defrauded of money, and perhaps payment of services or contract violation depending on the situation, but I have a hard time believing rape if the women consented at the time.
If the guy just wanted sex I suppose all is fair. After all the girls that go for this want to be sexually very liberal anyway. The money part, to me, is where the fraud can take place. If the guy had simply set up shop and told the girls that he wants to interview them and snap pics and send them out in hope of getting work and not charged money he could have still had a lot of sex. But taking money while claiming to be connected to studios puts an opening for the law to punish him. After all, sex is normally about deception. That is why lipstick, cosmetics, pop up bras and the like exist. The clear intention is for a girl to look more sexy than she actually is and that is every bit as deceptive as the guy saying he could get girls expensive modeling work.