LAS VEGAS, NV (KTNV) — Massage therapy is viewed as an important tool in promoting mental and physical health. It's meant to be relaxing and healing, but can also be traumatizing when therapists take advantage of clients in that inherently vulnerable state.
13 Investigates continues with coverage uncovered a decade ago about sexual assault in the massage industry.
A new case raises questions about whether a flawed system failed to prevent more women from becoming victims. But a warning first, some of the details in this report are graphic and could be triggering for survivors of sexual assault.
This story initially involved three alleged victims in three years at three different locations. However, on Thursday, we learned there could be as many as six victims after additional charges were filed against Luis Gonzalez for gross lewdness and sexual assault during massage. All of them accused Gonzalez of sexually assaulting them during a massage.
In one case, he confessed to the Nevada Board of Massage Therapy and was allowed to voluntarily surrender his license. However, that didn't stop him.
"I started to get confused and started to think what's happening to me right now and my heart started to race," an unidentified victim said during testimony in a Massage Board hearing in 2022.
It's a story retired Metro Sexual Assault Lieutenant Chris Carroll has heard too many times.
"I've seen a lot of this over the years with massage therapists. It happens again and again."
Carroll has worked countless cases pursuing often complicated crimes.
"There's oftentimes a time, distance between the crime occurring and the victim reporting," Carroll explains. "After about five days, you have very little, if no, physical evidence left to go on. They can be hard to prove. You can come up, ultimately, with a he said/she said."
Metro did have enough proof to charge Luis Gonzalez with sexually assaulting a female client last month when he was working at Oriental Thai Spa on Decatur and Flamingo.
RELATED LINK: Arrest report: Massage therapist facing multiple charges, accused of sexually assaulting client
The alleged victim was a tourist who told police she initially wanted a female masseuse but that Gonzalez told her he was the only one available. According to the police report, she reluctantly agreed.
She told police that during the massage, Gonzalez commented on her body shape, began kissing her breasts and penetrated her with his finger. She said she repeatedly told him to stop but he persisted and took control of her phone and clothing, hindering her ability to call for help. She said Gonzalez would only give the phone back if she promised not to call police. When he stepped out of the room, she was able to get dressed, find her friend, leave the spa and make the call. Results are still pending from a sexual assault examination she underwent at UMC.
Gonzalez told police the client was the one behaving inappropriately and that he ended the session early because he was uncomfortable.
What he didn't tell police is that the client who prompted the arrest wasn't the only woman to make eerily similar claims against him in the three years he'd been practicing massage in Nevada.
"There is almost always more than one victim, especially in a case like this, where the therapist is seeing, you know, a number of people each and every day," Carroll said.
The first alleged victim — also a tourist — came forward in 2022.
Under oath, the victim told Board members, "...at one point, he moved my underpants and he touched my vagina. And first, I wanted to think it was an accident or mistake but he touched several times. And so, I asked him not to do it."
At the time, Gonzalez had only been licensed in Nevada for three months. He was working at Sparadise Thai Wellness Boutique on Paradise Road.
"And I started to think how I'm going to handle this," the victim said. "And again, I'm almost naked in the room with this man. And so, I was afraid if I say something, he's gonna do something to me or what is going to happen to me."
In the hearing, Gonzalez denied the allegations.
"Her story is very different than what actually happened in the room," he said.
The victim also told board members she tried to report the incident to police over the phone the day it happened.
"But it was a long wait and going around and around to someone," she said.
She says she also tried to report in person the following day.
"Sunday," she said. "I tried to stop at the police — police office — but they were closed and we had to go back home after."
After this hearing, the state board took administrative action, suspending Gonzalez's license for 90 days and putting him on a two-year probation where he was restricted to practicing massage only on fully-clothed clients.
"In August of 2023, there was a second complaint that came to the board," says Board of Massage Therapy Executive director Elisabeth Barnard.
She says while still on probation, Gonzalez admitted he touched a female client's genitals several times, penetrating her with his finger. Records show she was completley nude during the session, which violated his probation. After that confession to the board, Mr. Gonzalez signed an agreement to surrender his license, which means he should not have been practicing when he was, again, accused of assault last month.
We asked Barnard if the massage board reported the first two cases in 2022 and 2023 to police.
"If the complainant has not made a complaint to law enforcement, we'll offer to help them with that," she says. "But we cannot make that report for them."
The intention is to allow victims to make that decision on their terms, as it's widely-known that reporting sexual assault is difficult for a variety of reasons.
While watching the hearing from 2022, we noted that a Metro police sergeant on the department's Crisis Intervention Team serves as an advisory board member and he was in the zoom when the alleged victim testified. We wanted to know what department policy is in this specific scenario.
According to Metro's website, officers are mandatory reporters in the case of child abuse, elder abuse or abuse of a disabled person. But in this case of an adult who doesn't fall into those categories, did the sergeant have an obligation to report the alleged assault? Did he follow up with the victim after the hearing?
We asked both Metro and the Massage Board those questions multiple times. The board director referred us back to Metro, where we also asked to speak directly to that sergeant.
In an email, Metro's public information office wrote, "We will not be able to accommodate your request for an interview. However, we have had additional victims come forward in an ongoing investigation of Luis Gonzalez."
Metro did not answer any of our questions.
"Maybe the system could have worked a little bit better than it did," Carroll said. "I think the board needs to review this case and their actions and look at the timeline and see is there, you know, do we have a hole in the system? Do we need to make a policy change? Could things have been done better?"
One step you can take, on the Massage Board's website, you can verify licenses and see a list of every therapist who's faced a disciplinary action.
Barnard also tells us, if you go for a massage, every spa is supposed to have an establishment certificate on display. She says if you don't see one, it could mean the Board of Massage Therapy does not know the business exists.
We made multiple attempts to reach both Gonzalez and his attorney, but neither one has responded.
We also haven't heard back from the spas where Gonzalez worked during the alleged assaults. We asked the Massage Board whether any action would be taken against those establishments. They said they couldn't provide details but that they are investigating both Oriental Thai Spa and Massage and Gonzalez.
In the current criminal case Metro is investigating, Gonzalez is now facing two felony counts of sexual assault and 14 counts of gross lewdness. His next court appearance is March 21.
