Court proceedings for Jason Matter, who was accused last November of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, have just begun.
During his arraignment on Monday, Jan. 5, Matter, 33, of West Bend, pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree child sexual assault, child sexual exploitation and two counts of causing a child to view sexual activity.
Matter's attorney, Chad Allen Lanning, then requested an adjournment so he could review the information in a separate case against Matter, containing similar charges, filed on Dec. 15 in Milwaukee County.
Matter's next hearing in Waukesha County court is scheduled for March 2. He remains in custody at the county jail on a $50,000 bond.
Basis of charges
The charges against Matter stem from an incident in mid-October of last year wherein Matter allegedly contacted and met up with a 13-year-old girl at an unspecified location in St. Francis and had sex with her.
He was arrested a couple of weeks later after a police inquiry into a similar sexual assault case revealed Matter's involvement with the girl. Matter was identified by Waukesha police as a suspect after they opened an investigation into a nearly identical incident involving Muskego resident Ethan Holt.
Holt was subsequently charged with sexually assaulting the same 13-year-old victim, who will not be named to protect her identity.
Matter reportedly used Kik and Whisper to communicate with and send nude pictures to the girl, using the profile names "net_sequence" and "readyforfun69."
Holt, 24, also used Kik and Whisper along with Tinder, Snapchat and text messages to "groom" the girl and arrange two sexual encounters with her, according to authorities.
Matter similarly arranged to meet the girl for sex on two separate occasions — once in early October, which was before the girl's 13th birthday — but the girl fell asleep in that instance and ultimately rescheduled, the complaint said.
However, the two met up on Oct. 18 at a home in the 3000 block of Layton Avenue in St. Francis and had sex, according to the complaint.
Resulting investigation
Police on Nov. 1 were granted permission to take over the girl's Kik and Whisper accounts, and later the same day an officer monitoring the phone received sexually explicit pictures from Matter, which appeared to have been taken during the Oct. 18 encounter.
The charges filed in Milwaukee County court — use of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime and second-degree sexual assault of a child — are tied to that incident.
Portions of a conversation between Matter and the victim, arranging that Oct. 18 encounter, are quoted in the complaint. Matter asks the girl how old she is, tells her "there's a bigger mental hurdle between 12 and 13 (years old)" and asks her if he can snap some photos of the two of them having sex.
He also reportedly tried to taunt the victim's father, who Matter believed had confiscated the girl's phone, by saying that the victim had performed so well for Matter sexually that it seemed like she'd been "doing it for years."
Matter could face up to about 160 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines if convicted.