A 51-year-old massage therapist was taken into custody by Miami Beach police on Monday, according to reports, after he inappropriately touched a customer during what was meant to be a lymphatic drainage treatment.
According to the police, the attack took place at Sun Curves Miami, which is situated in South Beach at 1000 West Ave.
The victim told police, according to an arrest record, that she had previously attended the identical two-hour session with therapist Erick Carmona Barrios twice without any problems.
According to authorities, such was not the case on Friday.
According to the complaint, at around 7:45 p.m., Barrios started rubbing the victim’s pelvic area and finally dropped her underwear, eventually doing so in a more sensuous manner as he drew closer to her genitals.
According to police reports, the woman “became instantly overcome with fear, as she described (Barrios) as being physically larger and stronger than herself.”
Police said that when she urged Barrios to “stop,” he stopped massaging her genitalia and started caressing her breasts.
However, the complaint claims that Barrios resumed groping the woman’s genitalia and digitally entered her, stopping when she cried, “No!”
The lady informed Barrios she had to use the restroom in order to get away after he ordered her to flip over on the massage table, according to the police.
She promptly changed into her clothing, according to the police, and proceeded to the front desk to report what had transpired.
According to the arrest report, the distraught woman was “hysterically crying” as she exited the room and was captured on camera indicating that she was in “severe distress” while pointing to her genital region.
Authorities claimed that at about 8:30 p.m. when they learned of the attack, officers went to the spa.
Subsequently, the proprietor of the spa would inform authorities that “never is the vulva/vagina area touched” during a session, and that she has had lymphatic drainage treatments with Barrios, who “never removes her underpants,” in addition to operating the spa.
Barrios’ contact information was provided to police by the owner and her front desk employee sister, which allowed the authorities to set up an interview for Monday at police headquarters.
Barrios “admitted that he could have very easily touched (the woman) in the vulva/vagina area but did not do so with wrongful intentions” during that questioning.
Barrios denied ever piercing or caressing the victim’s breasts, but police claimed he “demonstrated several times how his knuckles or side of hand would rub on the vulva/vagina area while working the pelvic area.”
Barrios, of southwest Miami-Dade, was taken into custody by the authorities on a charge of sexually abusing a vulnerable person.
A Miami-Dade court set a $10,000 bond for him, but as of Tuesday afternoon, the Cuban national was still being held at the Metro West Detention Center with an immigration hold.
“My client is a registered masseuse (sic),” the lawyer for Barrios declared in court. “He’s blind as well.”
Later, when Local 10 News met with the owner of the spa, she stated that Barrios was dismissed right away because she was taken aback by the accusations. She said that the individual she knew was not the person described in the claims, and the company is assisting the authorities.