BlogLawsuit Against Match Group for Drugging and Sexual Assault Filed in CO

On Tuesday, December 16, 2025, C. A. Goldberg, PLLC filed a lawsuit in Colorado against Match Group, Hinge, and Tinder. 

Our clients, Jane Doe 1-9, were matched by Hinge and Tinder with Stephen Matthews, a serial rapist, who drugged and raped them. In September 2020, a woman was raped by Matthews after matching with him on Hinge. She reported immediately and was told he was banned. Instead, the same woman was matched with him again a couple months later. When she again reported him, they apologized and said now he was permanently banned. Instead, he continued to use Hinge and drugged and raped women for three years. Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, continued to welcome Matthews on its apps, even after learning its products were facilitating his rape spree. 

Match Group knew since at least September 2020 that Matthews was using its dating app products to find victims to drug and rape.  But it wasn’t until March 2023 that Matthews was stopped – and not because Match Group acted on the information they had, but because Denver Police had received its first report from a victim and arrested Matthews. In May 2023, Matthews was arrested again after 9 more women reported to police similar allegations of being drugged and/or sexually assaulted. In August 2024, a Denver jury convicted Matthews of 35 counts related to the drugging and/or sexual assaults of 11 women between 2019 and 2023. He was sentenced to 158 years to life in prison. 

Background 

Dr. Stephen Matthews, a Denver-based cardiologist, used Hinge and Tinder to find women to sexually assault. In his profiles, he consistently used his real name, photos, description of his work and place of employment, and linked his personal phone number. 

Matthews had a playbook: he’d use Hinge or Tinder to find women. He typically scheduled a midday date and made up a story involving his dog for why he needed to stop at his apartment once the date started. He would then offer a woman a drink, secretly drugging her with unknown pharmaceutical drug(s). They’d play Jenga, she would pass out, and then he’d rape her. This happened repeatedly. Upon information and belief, he often took pictures of the women naked, and at least once, took a video. He’d then kick the women out, often encouraging them to drive home while they were blacked out.  

Victims of Stephen Matthews can still join our lawsuit against Hinge and Tinder.  

Dating App Sexual Assault Lawsuit

On December 16, 2025, we filed our lawsuit on behalf of Jane Does 1-6 against IAC, Inc., Match Group, Inc., Hinge, Inc., LLC, and Stephen Matthews.   

Legal claims against Hinge and Tinder include product liability (defective design, failure to warn), negligence, negligent misrepresentation, sexual battery, battery, violation of Colorado Consumer Protection Act, trafficking, and more.  

IAC is an American holding company that invented online dating in the 1990s, transforming how we find romantic connections. Match Group is a publicly traded company spun off from IAC, which has a 60% market share in the dating app industry. Match Group owns Tinder (the world’s most popular dating app), Hinge, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, The League, Match.com, and more. 

Match Group products have created an industry that normalized and profited from the romantic and sexual connection of total strangers. And they’ve made themselves available to sexual predators as a hunting ground with a virtually unlimited number of victims.  

Match Group’s products were designed with deliberate disregard for the foreseeable problem of rape. Rapists are welcomed, paying members across their products – and Match Group is fully aware of its defective design which inadequately responds to and prevents members raping members.  

Even when Match Group receives reports about rapists, they continue to welcome them, fail to warn users about the general and specific risks, and affirmatively recommend known predators to members.  

Match Group has long proceeded as though it’s the “cost of doing business” that some of its members will be rapists and some members will get raped. But an encounter with a serial rapist – getting drugged and sexually assaulted — should not be the cost of seeking a romantic or sexual connection online. 

Read our full lawsuit here.  

Our co-counsel are Gerash Steiner P.C., Dormer Harpring, McDermott Legal, and Shafner Law. 

If you met Stephen Matthews through a dating app and he drugged and/or sexually assaulted you, please reach out to us at (646) 666-8908 or contact us here to set up an intake call.

Dating App Sexual Assault Lawsuit FAQs: 

I met Stephen Matthews on a dating app and was drugged and/or sexually assaulted. Can I stil join the lawsuit?  

If you met Stephen Matthews through a dating app and were drugged and/or sexually assaulted, you might have legal claims. Call (646) 666-8908 or contact us here to set up an intake call.  

I was sexually assaulted by someone else I met through a dating app. Can I sue?  

You may have legal claims if you were sexually assaulted by someone you met on a dating app. Call (646) 666-8908 or contact us here to set up an intake call. Learn more about when it makes sense to sue here. We are lawyers experienced in suing victims of sexual violence because of negligence on Hinge, Tinder, Match, Grindr, Snap, Omegle, Meta, and more. 

Check out our full complaint and demand for jury trial filed on December 16, 2025, Jane Doe 1-6 v IAC, Inc., Match Group, Inc., Hinge, Inc., Tinder, LLC, and Defendant Stephen Matthews.