Denver man sentenced to 156 years in prison for sexual assault

In 2020, she was working as a teacher and looking for a loving relationship when she connected with a Denver-area doctor on a dating app. The two chatted for a month before she agreed to meet him at his home.

It seemed like a normal first date as the two met over cocktails and played Jenga, but she soon became seriously ill and fainted on the man's bathroom floor.

What followed were hazy memories of a sexual assault that left her anxious and suicidal. When she retired from teaching in 2023, the experience of saying goodbye to her students on her last day was overshadowed by her memories of the attack.

“They put a substance in our tequila drinks and then took full advantage of our minds, bodies and souls,” she said in a hearing Friday. “I was really struggling with the burden that I could have done something to change you, something to stop this.”

Her story was one of many tales of humiliation, grief and despair that survivors of convicted serial sex offender and disgraced cardiologist Stephen Matthews told a Denver court Friday before he was sentenced to 158 years in prison.

Over the years, Matthews drugged and assaulted no fewer than 11 women. In doing so, he retained what the victims described as “trophies” in the form of videos and photos showing them being sexually abused and having difficulty walking and standing. A jury found him guilty in August of 35 counts of assault and sexual assault.

Denver District Judge Eric Johnson sentenced Matthews to 96 years in prison for eight counts of sexual assault, 60 years in prison for 10 counts of second-degree aggravated assault and two years in prison for one count of third-degree assault, to be served consecutively.

Among Matthews' survivors' ongoing fears is the possibility that additional women — “dozens more, no doubt,” one victim said — were attacked before his pattern of predatory behavior came to light, leading to his arrest in March 2023.

When Matthews encountered his victims after attacking them, he was flirtatious. He attributed her inability to lack of alcohol tolerance. His victims, in turn, blamed themselves for accepting the alcoholic drinks that Matthews had stocked up on without their knowledge.

They thought with disgust about having sexual intercourse to which they could not consent. Many said they had considered suicide as they were tormented by fragmented memories and nightmares from the time they spent at Matthews' home.

In a statement read by another victim, a colleague of Matthews described how he drugged her during a tour of his home in 2022 after she agreed to look after his dog while he was out of town .

Over the next four nights, she wrote that if Matthews came home early, she would lock the door to her guest room and move furniture out the door.

When he returned, the victim wrote that he tried to ask her out, telling her he had “a great time” and “would like to do it again.”

“The first time I saw Stephen at work after the incident, he greeted me with the words, 'Oh, hey, look who's there, the girl who can't handle her drinking,'” the victim wrote.

“He took every chance opportunity in the hallway to touch my hand with his hand. He continued to comment on my low alcohol tolerance. He kept telling me that I had drunk too much, so often that I started to believe him, to really believe him.”

Many women said that because of his position as a doctor, they tended to trust Matthews and accepted his excuse in faith that they had passed out from consuming too many alcoholic beverages rather than from the drugs Matthews mixed into their drinks had.

“He checked a lot of the boxes that women look for on dating apps,” wrote another woman, who was not a victim in the case but said Matthews also assaulted her after giving her a drugged alcoholic drink Drink was given.

“Unfortunately for all of us, what Stephen Matthews wanted from a partner was neither a relationship nor even a willing participation in sex. No. What upset Stephen Matthews was a completely incapacitated partner, unable to say no to what he wanted to do to them.”

Matthews' victims were outgoing and successful – some were medical professionals, teachers or graduate students. The women who testified Friday said the attacks derailed their careers and left them traumatized, frightened and unable to maintain relationships.

Matthews used dating apps to find his victims, sometimes agreeing to meet in a public place before finding an excuse to lead them to his house.

One survivor said she met Matthews in January 2023 after the two connected on an app over their shared love of dogs and passion for medicine.

When she arrived at his home, the woman said Matthews pressured her to have one drink, then another, and another. She became disoriented and Matthews put her in a headlock and kissed her.

As she struggled to protect herself and maintain her balance, Matthews took a cell phone video of her, which the woman said was played by Matthews' defense attorneys during the trial to discredit her.

“I saw my ability to control my body diminish as I stumbled,” she said. “I saw a moment in my life that I didn't know existed, but he made sure he could keep it to himself. …You used my attacker’s trophy to attack me to make jokes at my expense.”

She added that she escaped Matthew's house on foot after being drugged, leaving her shoes and jacket behind in the winter cold.

At the time of the attack, the woman said she had just bought a house and was hoping to find a partner to share it with. In that year and several months since, she said she has struggled to regain her confidence.

“Almost two years later, I’m still afraid to open my front door,” she said. “He has burdened us with this process and retraumatized us because he is not human enough to tell the truth.”

After Matthews' survivors and their loved ones testified for hours that he was unmerciful and beyond rehabilitation, members of Matthews' family pleaded for mercy and said the 37-year-old was still capable of making a positive contribution.

His mother, Debbie Steinke, described how he persevered in school despite learning difficulties, graduated with honors from the University of Colorado Boulder and pursued medical school out of a genuine desire to help others.

“I ask you, Mr. Judge, to please give him the opportunity to overcome another major obstacle, to become a better person and an asset to society, by imposing a sentence that does not simply throw away the key,” she said . “He has a good and kind heart. Maybe not here today, but I saw it.”