• 24
  • June
    2011

In our current economy, many people have been forced to endure working environments they might not otherwise tolerate. For more than 12 women in California, that meant continuing to work in a massage school where they were sexually harassed by their boss.

According to an article on KGET 17, the man preyed on women who were down on their luck. Many of the women were desperate for employment, and they were grateful when the man offered to let them live in a house he owned previously. Sadly, many of the women who worked at the massage school were forced to rely on him for almost everything, including work, housing, food and transportation.

Once the women were in his care, he would threaten them and touch them inappropriately. He told one woman that if she didn't have sex with him, that he would not let her graduate. He walked between the legs of another woman, rubbed her legs and asked her if she wanted to have sex.

Another woman answered a seemingly unrelated ad on craigslist and was lured in. The featured ad was for a bicycle, and the woman was currently without a means of transportation. When she met the man to buy the bicycle, he instead took her to the massage school and offered her employment.

He said he was going to test her skills by having her practice on him. The man took off his clothes, and although he covered himself with towels at the beginning of the massage, he took them off as she was working. At the end of the massage, he repeatedly asked her to touch him inappropriately.

When the news station contacted the man, he insisted that "someone is trying to run a smear campaign." Given the man's criminal record, that seems unlikely. He has already contacted an attorney to represent him.

Source: 17 KGET, "17 Investigation: Massage school owner accused of sexual harassment," 20 June 2011