DENVER — Jury deliberations began Thursday afternoon in the trial of a former Denver cardiologist accused of drugging and sexually assaulting several women.
Stephen Matthews was first arrested in March 2023 after a woman reported the allegations to Denver police. Not long after Matthews’s initial arrest, nine more women came forward to tell their stories, and the former doctor was arrested again in May 2023.
An arrest affidavit states the alleged assaults date back to 2019.
Matthews’s trial lasted almost four weeks. He faces 38 charges and is accused of drugging 11 women — nine of whom claim he sexually assaulted them, as well. The majority of women in the case say they met Matthews through dating apps like Tinder or Hinge.
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During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors said there were dozens of witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence presented to the jury.
“Stephen Matthews had a deliberate and very particular way of identifying and selecting the targets that he would eventually perpetrate against,” said a prosecutor during closing arguments. “This is an obvious, obvious case of a man who feels entitled to perpetrate against women for his own benefit by robbing them of memory, by robbing them of bodily autonomy, and by impairing their memories, only to have them come in and testify and criticize them for the fact that [their memories] don’t exist.”
Meanwhile, Matthews’s defense team argued this was a case with overwhelming emotion and underwhelming evidence.
“Merely getting up here and telling a story, it’s evidence for you to consider but it’s not proof beyond a reasonable doubt unless you think it is. It’s just an accusation. It’s just an allegation,” a defense attorney told the jury. “Don’t let the volume of accusations override your common sense and your reasonableness.”
The jury will reconvene on Friday morning.
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