Name: 'Silent danger': Multiple Houston customers report sex assaults at national massage chain
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'Silent danger': Multiple Houston customers report sex assaults at national massage chain

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It was a routine question at the front desk.“How was everything?” the receptionist asked the repeat customer.“Not good,” said the woman, a business owner who had just finished a 90-minute session at the Alden Bridge Massage Heights in The Woodlands. And, no, she did not want the gift cards she’d purchased earlier that day in September 2017.Amid sobs and bouts of nausea, she disclosed in a manager’s back office that while she was face up on the table, the massage therapist with the long ponytail had touched her breasts — which she thought was an accident — but then he lifted the sheet and stuck his fingers in her vagina, according to criminal court trial testimony. The Houston Chronicle does not name victims or alleged victims of sexual assault without their permission.It turned out this location of the nationwide chain had received a customer report two months earlier about the same licensed massage therapist, Mario Rubio. Management of the franchise kept Rubio on staff after that earlier complaint that he touched a client’s vagina but retrained him on how to tuck sheets around a customer’s body, according to testimony at his 2018 trial for the sexual assault of the second customer. He is now serving an 18-year prison term for that assault. He had his license revoked by the state’s regulatory agency.His lawyer declined to comment about the case.Based on state disciplinary records, sex offender registries, police, court and correctional records and interviews, the Houston Chronicle found at least 24 reports of Massage Heights therapists across the U.S. making sexual contact with clients since 2010, including at least nine accusations of unwanted contact at seven out of 24 franchises across the Houston area.Allegations of have been in the news with the , but the details of some cases at Massage Heights show there is also a risk of massage therapists assaulting customers. Clients who reported assaults at local franchises include a Harris County elected official and an undercover police officer.Massage Heights Franchising said in a statement that it teaches franchise owners to screen and train therapists, but it does not get involved in day-to-day operations at sites, has limited control over its franchisees, and should not be held responsible for employees who don’t follow the rules.Massage was once either a luxury or a seedy pursuit for those seeking sexual gratification. A new business model emerged two decades ago with mid-tier storefront massage outfits cropping up in affluent areas. Massage Heights and similar companies sell members batches of affordable massages.Massage Heights Franchising is based in San Antonio with 111 locations open in the wake of the pandemic, including 51 in Texas and 24 in the Houston region.Three men have been convicted of having sexual contact with four local customers since 2011 and another three men have pending cases in four alleged assaults.Six Massage Heights therapists in Texas since 2012 have had their licenses revoked or have been fined by the state’s regulatory agency following allegations they made sexual contact with clients. Tela Mange, spokesperson for the Texas Department of Licensing &amp; Regulation, didn’t respond directly to the question of whether six is within the normal range for a chain, saying, “The number of actions reflects that TDLR, local prosecutors and the massage therapy industry are taking this issue more seriously than perhaps happened in the past.”Another six Massage Heights employees have received disciplinary sanctions in other states since 2010 due to sexual contact with customers.A spokesperson for Massage Heights Franchising, LLC said the company “strongly believes that we play a role in assisting franchisees in ensuring the health and safety of the thousands of members and guests” and the company “has a zero-tolerance policy for conduct that is sexual in nature at franchisees’ retreats.”The company has made similar statements in the wake of various sexual assault charges against its massage therapists across the U.S., saying the company has a “zero tolerance” policy about inappropriate touching.Massage Heights’ statement said franchises must offer training on safety procedures and sexual misconduct annually throughout their employment. Owners rely on “the professionalism of the licensed massage therapist to follow federal, state, and local laws that apply to their practice, as well as their ethics training, to protect the guests they serve.”“Sexual assault is a crime, regardless of where it occurs, and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” the statement said. It is up to franchise owners to recruit, hire, train and terminate employees.But some hires have slipped in through the cracks.Jeremiah Wilson denied that he had placed his penis in a client’s hand while she was face down on the table during a massage in January 2020 at the Shadow Creek Massage Heights in Pearland. He told a Pearland detective he’d previously worked at Massage Envy for years and no one had complained.The detective followed up with his former employer in West University and learned Wilson had been fired by Massage Envy “because of a customer complaint of inappropriate touching,” according to the detective’s statement in the pending misdemeanor indecent assault case against Wilson. Wilson’s attorney declined to comment.Similar concerns about employee screening arose in an unrelated Massage Heights incident in Encinitas, Calif. A customer there sued in 2016 saying her therapist touched her breasts and put his hands and mouth on her genitals during a massage. A witness called to testify in that suit said the same therapist, George Washington Lindsey III, had touched her vagina six times during a 2011 session when he was employed at a Massage Envy franchise. The Massage Heights franchise ultimately settled for $240,000 with the Encinitas victim. Lindsey was convicted of sexual battery and placed on a sex offender registry for life. Massage Heights Franchising was not a party to the suit.Anjali Nigam, the attorney for the woman Rubio was convicted of assaulting at Alden Bridge in The Woodlands, said in her civil suit against the chain that legitimate massage businesses have a “substantial” and “systemic” problem with unwelcome attacks by staff.“They know that this silent danger exists, and they’re doing nothing to prevent that their customers are raped and assaulted,” she said.The company denies any liability for Rubio’s purported conduct and says the incident was not reported to Massage Heights Franchising.The issue of sexual assault has come up at other businesses, including the largest budget massage chain. In a 2017 investigation of Massage Envy, found 180 reports of sexual assault at the chain’s salons around the country.Massage Envy said it is “committed to promoting a safe environment for members, guests and service providers at each of the over 1,100 franchised locations nationwide” and it urges “anyone who experiences anything other than a safe, quality massage to report it immediately to the franchised location so that it can be investigated.”Loading…While corporate executives may know that bad actors could crop up from time to time, customers are typically unaware of the danger of sexual assault when they book an appointment, according to criminal and civil lawyers who represented victims in these cases.Assistant manager Ashley Brown testified at Rubio’s criminal trial that the victim, a mother of three, seemed shocked and confused and kept repeating to Brown, “How could this happen to me? You know? I’m an older lady. How does this happen?”The once gregarious 53-year-old now fears venturing out of her house alone. Her civil suit against the owner of the now-closed franchise and Massage Heights says it’s a dereliction of duty that the company failed to screen, train and supervise personnel, creating a dangerous environment where patrons lie naked in a dim, windowless room and trust that professional safeguards are in place.Eric Oliver, identified in court documents as the owner of The Woodlands and Encintas franchises, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.In early March, a Harris County judge declined the company’s request to dismiss the case filed by Rubio’s victim. It’s one of at least three civil actions by four customers who alleged Massage Heights employees made sexual contact at salons in the Houston region.The suits over allegations of unwanted sexual contact include one that stems from back-to-back reports in August 2019 at a Massage Heights on West Holcombe near the Texas Medical Center.First, the chief of staff at the Pct. 1 Constable’s office notified investigators at her office she had been assaulted during a massage at the salon, according to a spokesman for the constable. The next day an undercover officer participated in a sting operation at the same salon and reported that she, too, had been sexually assaulted by the same therapist who was licensed under the name James Jefferson.The first woman, who subsequently reported her account to Houston police, revealed herself to the Houston Chronicle to be a 35-year-old elected official named Erica Davis, who serves on Harris County’s board of education and is a civilian staffer for Pct. 1 Constable Alan Rosen, the constable’s spokesman said.Rosen explained that sending his undercover deputy to inspect the place is part of his regular work: “Officers every day are put in situations that can be dangerous, yet these professionals do the job knowing of that danger.”The criminal charge against Jefferson, whose legal name is Wenjin Zhu, says he digitally penetrated her during a massage on Aug. 19, 2019. The attack took a huge emotional toll, altering the dynamics of her marriage and how she views herself, Davis said.“You walk around as if you’ve got ‘victim’ written on your chest and have new skin made out of dirt that covers your body,” she said.Zhu remains in jail in lieu of $30,000 bail on criminal charges for two sexual assaults in the same week — of Davis and the undercover officer.Davis and her husband are suing Massage Heights, the franchise owner Asif Hafiz and the therapist. Hafiz and Zhu declined through their attorneys to comment.Davis’ lawyer, Nigam, grilled Shane Evans, the cofounder and CEO of Massage Heights Franchising, during a 2020 deposition about why she let the owner of The Woodlands branch continue operating franchises after she knew about sexual assaults at his franchises as early as one alleged incident in 2013 at one of his spas in Florida. Massage Heights settled a case involving that incident, according to court documents. An industry expert called by Rubio’s customer had called it “unconscionable” that the company hadn’t terminated its relationship with the owner.Oliver, the former owner, could not be reached for comment. But the company CEO said in response to Nigam’s questioning that corporate leaders accept no responsibility for what happened to The Woodlands client. She also does not hold Oliver responsible for the actions of a licensed therapist if that employee isn’t following company rules.“You can’t teach bad people not to do bad things,” Evans said, according to a transcript. She said therapists who sexually assault customers are “bad apples” who disregard the principles of their training. She said she was terribly sorry for what happened to the victim in The Woodlands case and others assaulted during a massage.“We don’t control what happens in those rooms,” she testified.In regard to the massage therapists accused in The Woodlands and near the Medical Center, the Massage Heights spokesperson said both had valid licenses and were in good standing. Both underwent background checks. The franchise owners in each case determined, without the involvement of Massage Heights Franchising, that the therapists were qualified to be hired, the official said.But some in the industry question whether the parent company has done enough prevention. Larry Weatherford, a local franchise owner who served on an advisory board for Massage Heights, wrote the CEO in 2012 following an internal email alerting branches of a news story about a sexual assault the year prior in Parkway Village, near George Bush Park. Weatherford suggested he include a session at their yearly conference about “how to avoid this type of problem in the future,” according to a court document. Weatherford asked for background checks at all franchises through a reputable, centralized agency and called for “true zero-tolerance,” which he defined as “we terminate anyone reasonably in question of an incident.”“Instead of crisis-management,” Weatherford wrote in an email, “we need to avoid the crisis.”Nigam argues in a recent filing that nowhere in the company’s 2015 training schedule — included in Oliver’s franchise agreement for the Alden Bridge spa — did employees receive training on sexual assault prevention.A Massage Heights Franchising spokesperson said: “Since 2012 we have implemented a number of changes, including that background checks are now required at least once per year, in addition to reference checks and state license disciplinary checks, amongst other proprietary operational implementations. We also provide ethics training opportunities and hired a massage educator at our national conference.”Massage Heights’ lawyers responded in court documents that there were “several blatant misrepresentations” in Nigam’s assessment. Rubio, who was convicted by a jury in the Woodlands case, had 54 hours of ethics training prior to being hired, they said, so the franchise faces “no viable claim for negligent training” and the company cannot be held liable for a franchise’s negligent hiring, lawyers said.The number of actual therapist-on-client violations within the industry is likely higher than those reported, since the vast majority of sexual assaults are not reported, according to Justice Department statistics.Ben Benjamin, author of “The Ethics of Touch,” reviewed Massage Heights’ training and testified as an expert in abuse prevention in The Woodlands’ victim’s lawsuit. He said the company’s prevention planning fell short, according to court documents.Benjamin said the company did not maintain basic communication with franchise owners.“They don’t do enough training in sexual abuse prevention, ethics,” he said. And when an incident of abuse was reported, he said, employees should automatically notify police.A Massage Heights Franchising spokesperson said: “Franchisees and their employees are required to offer assistance to report a crime to the police if they are made aware of an incident.”Lisa Stewart, who prosecuted Rubio and has undergone extensive training in victim responses to trauma, said, “I think this company failed these women.”“It doesn’t surprise me that it keeps happening because it’s a professional relationship that has been diluted to a corner store,” Stewart said.This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateBenjamin has worked with other businesses to add safeguards, including mandated checks of sex offender registries, targeted curriculum and role plays, emergency call buttons and supervision of therapists by a psychologist or social worker trained in the dynamics of sexual assault.At Massage Heights, Benjamin said, “Nothing is in place that is substantial to prevent and to weed out predator therapists.”Evans, the company CEO, challenged that assessment in testimony, stating that all therapists must be licensed, provide recommendations and pass background checks.In a statement to the Chronicle, she said: “As an industry, we put protocols in place to help ensure only qualified, licensed massage therapists who have current criminal background checks perform services. The industry spends hundreds of hours training therapists on massage therapy safety, ethics, and how to prevent sexual assault, and it is deplorable that any massage therapist would choose to betray the trust of a client.”The company called Mark C. Siebert, who testified he was not an expert in the ethics of massage or in sexual assault prevention but in the relationships between companies and franchise owners.Siebert said there is a range of compliance with standards among franchisers and “a company needs to do everything they reasonably can to… protect the community.”Siebert disagrees with Benjamin that Massage Heights’ training was inadequate. He said the company spends more time training its staff than Massage Envy or other chains and that no training will train the predator out of the predator. He testified that he didn’t believe the company was obligated to perform site visits and that a franchiser has limited control over franchisees.Licensing in Texas requires 45 hours of training in massage therapy laws, rules, business practices and professional ethics standards. State exams include questions related to ethical practice, said Ron Precht, spokesman for the American Massage Therapy Association.For Davis, who went for a massage near the Medical Center, sharing her story has been healing.“Even though this was a traumatic experience,” she said, “it is my prayer that when others see me, they see courage.”gabrielle.banks@chron.com

It was a routine question at the front desk.“How was everything?” the receptionist asked the repeat customer.“Not good,” said the woman, a business owner who had just finished a 90-minute session at the Alden Bridge Massage Heights in The Woodlands. And, no, she did not want the gift cards she’d purchased earlier that day in September 2017.Amid sobs and bouts of nausea, she disclosed in a manager’s back office that while she was face up on the table, the massage therapist with the long ponytail had touched her breasts — which she thought was an accident — but then he lifted the sheet and...

'Silent danger': Multiple Houston customers report sex assaults at national massage chain

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