Ick Factor: Masseur Accused of Rubbing Women the Wrong Way

Last week, a customer of identified only as "Jane Doe" filed a 16-page lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court, alleging that one of the studio's masseurs, Mark Pergil Valenzon, sexually assaulted her.

Valenzon was previously arrested last year in a case involving another sexual assault that he allegedly made against a different female Massage Envy customer. After reports of Valenzon's arrest surfaced, Doe decided to come forward with her story and reported it to police and the Orange County District Attorney's office.

The details laid out in the suit are graphic. According to the brief, after Doe had stripped down to her underwear bottoms and lay face-down on the massage table ...

At first, the massage seemed to be progressing normally. However, at some point during the massage, Plaintiff heard Valenzon begin breathing heavily and heard him masturbating. Paralyzed in fear and disbelief, Plaintiff lay still on the massage table. Valenzon then placed his erect penis on Plaintiff's head and touched his erect penis on her bare side. In utter shock and disbelief, Plaintiff tried to convince herself that what she was experiencing was not actually happening. Unfortunately, Valenzon had, in fact, engaged in lewd, inappropriate, and unwanted touching.

The suit says that Doe informed the staff that she never wanted to use Valenzon as a masseur ever again. The Massage Envy staff noted her request in their computer, but allegedly ...

(W)hen Plaintiff requested a copy of her computer file at Massage Envy reflecting her directive to never have Valenzon as a masseuse, Plaintiff discovered that Massage Envy had altered her file and deleted the notation in an effort to cover any knowledge that Valenzon was a threat to his female clients.

Both women are represented by Newport Beach attorney Scott J. Ferrell, who didn't hold back in the brief that was filed.

"Defendants' actions are inexcusable," Ferrell wrote. "This lawsuit concerns another incident of a woman's sexual assault by the same Massage Envy masseur whose attempted rape of a different woman at the same Massage Envy franchise location in Laguna Beach is the subject of current litigation. These women ... were horrifically violated. Apparently this Massage Envy masseuse's modus operandi includes exposing himself when these vulnerable women lay prostrate during massage sessions and then sexually assaulting them."

The owners of the Laguna Beach Massage Envy studio, John and Barbara Meeks, are also named in the suit.

Massage Envy has also been named in other lawsuits involving rape and sexual assault in Tustin, Seal Beach, Maryland, Texas, Utah and Kansas City.