Jury Convicts Smooth Talker of Defrauding Six Ex-Lovers

Matt Mathews wasn’t feeling very wonderful Thursday.

The 60-year-old Laguna Niguel man, dubbed “Mr. Wonderful” for his keen ability to woo women, was convicted by an Orange County jury of defrauding six former lovers by taking “loans” he never intended to pay back.

Jurors took a little over a day to find him guilty of six counts of grand theft and two counts of attempted grand theft. The verdicts led Mathews’ defense attorney to question whether the nearly all-female panel was out to get his client.

“Unfortunately, the jury was 10 women and two men,” defense attorney Marshall Schulman told Superior Court Judge John Ryan. He said he believed the female jurors had the attitude that “ ‘We’re gonna get you because you’re a womanizer’ and the men just went along.”

Jurors rushed out of the Santa Ana courtroom and declined to comment. Moments later, Mathews, who has been married 11 times and has two previous convictions on similar charges, was immediately sentenced to nine years and four months in prison and ordered to pay $40,500 in restitution and $200 in fines.

He was a charming bon vivant who seduced women with heroic tales about his work as a volunteer firefighter, according to authorities. Mathews met his victims, mostly middle-aged women, through personal ads or at restaurants. Shortly after winning their affection, he would ask them for money.

One of his victims, a San Clemente woman, gave him $27,000 for dental implants and payments on a BMW, according to court records.

Mathews was convicted in 1977 for stealing from two Santa Barbara women. In 1983, he was found guilty of victimizing three Orange County women with similar scams.

None of his recent victims were present Thursday. Asst. Dist. Atty. Jim Marion said the victims were not eager to be in the same courtroom as Mathews.

“They were very reluctant, your honor, even to testify” against Mathews at trial, Marion said.

Mathews, who had been free on $250,000 bail pending trial, was taken into custody after Thursday’s proceedings.

His attorney had asked the judge for a more lenient sentence of five years, and objected when the judge ordered restitution payments. “This is just a bunch of women smashing a man,” he told Judge Ryan as he argued on his client’s behalf.

Schulman said Mathews has “some problems with self-confidence which cause him to exaggerate his deeds” but that he always intended to pay the women back.

But Walt Zwonitzer, a private investigator who was hired by some of the victims, disagreed.

“He’s talented, charismatic, smart,” Zwonitzer said of Mathews. “He could be successful at anything he puts his mind to, but unfortunately he chooses to win the confidence of women, over and over again.”