Tech journalist, male feminist, and anti-#GamerGate critic, Matt Hickey has been fined $332,000 for his fake porn agency recruitment scam that he used as a front in order to have sex with young women and take nude pictures of the women.

The Stranger has been keeping tabs on the court cases involving Hickey, and recently reported on the latest updates regarding his case. Due to Hickey failing to respond to the Attorney General’s motion from back in late 2016 for his anti-consumer antics of running a fake porn recruitment agency, the court decided to punish the former tech journalist for this rather large err.

The judge ruled that Hickey will be fined $300,000 in state penalties for violating 150 Washington state consumer protection laws, and he’s also being fined an additional $32,201 for court fees. According to lead attorneyAndrea Alegrett, they’re using Hickey to set example for anyone else attempting to engage in anti-consumer practices, saying…

“We obviously take this very seriously and will use all our tools to go after people who engage in this type of behavior,” Alegrett said. “We also hope that it encourages people who might not think of us as a resource to come to us.”

Hickey had been running the porn agency scam since 2006. Hickey had fabricated a fake identity using the name of his high-school crush, Deja Stwalley. The whole scam was obviously unbeknownst to the real Deja, and she was appalled to find out what Hickey had been doing. The story originally broke last June in 2016, and Hickey has been getting hit with legal trouble ever since.

The Attorney General sued Hickey for defrauding the women after the case began gaining widespread traction for the separate charges of Hickey being accused of second-degree rape, involving getting women drunk and then having sex with them multiple times while they were passed out.

Hickey denies the accusations.

However, shortly after the original story broke, Hickey fled Washington and took up residence in Las Vegas, where he began seeking out models once again for his supposed porn agency.

The reality is that the porn companies he supposedly represented denied having any affiliation with him. None of the women he supposedly attempted to recruit ever made it into the porn business because Matt Hickey had no connections with the porn industry.

All during this time Hickey had been advocating for sex-negativity on behalf of third-wave feminists. Hickey adopted the activism of a male feminist, attacking companies and the tech industry for its alleged “sexism”, including chastising Microsoft for hiring gogo dancers for an after party at the Game Developers Conference.. Hickey previously wrote for The Stranger, Forbes and Gizmodo.

Now it looks as if Hickey will not only be facing some potentially serious jail time for the rape charges, but will also have to pay the state for his anti-consumer antics.

(Main image courtesy of The Stranger)

(Thanks for the news tip Hawk Hopper)