WEST CHESTER — A massage therapist who worked at a Kennett Square area spa is facing charges that he illegally groped a female customer during a massage session.
Jonathan Farrior Scott was charged in December with one count of indecent assault and a summary count of harassment by East Marlborough police after the client told an investigator that he had fondled her buttocks and had inappropriately touched her crotch during the session.
Scott, 43, of Caln Township, waived his right to a preliminary hearing on Wednesday before Magisterial District Judge Albert Iacocca of Kennett Square. His case will now be heard in Chester County Common Pleas Court.
According to the arrest affidavit by East Marlborough Officer Eric D. Ruggeri, a 30-year-old woman contacted police on Sept. 25 and said that a week prior, she had received a message at the Hand and Stone Spa, where she had been a client for about two years.
In this case, she said she had been assigned to a therapist she knew as “Jonathan.”
During the session, the woman said, the therapist, later identified as Scott, allegedly massaged her buttocks for what seemed to be 10 to 15 minutes, during which he fully cupped them and shook them excessively with his bare hands. Then, while she was lying on her stomach, he pulled her underwear down without her consent.
She said she also believed that he intentionally made contact with her body with his groin.
After the session, the woman lay on her back and Scott asked her to put her hands over her crotch. When she did, he allegedly put his hands on top of hers and said that he “wanted to feel down there,” Ruggeri said in his affidavit.
The officer said that during his investigation, he learned that Hand and Stone require advance permission to massage a client’s buttocks. The woman said she had given no such permission.
Scott remains free on bail pending his trial. A woman answering the phone at the spa on Friday said he no longer works there.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
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