Stefan J. Barnes Jr., a male massage therapist on the Jersey Shore, was arrested on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, and charged with criminal sexual contact and sexual assault after an investigation of a complaint by a female customer.
According to media reports, Wall Township police charged Stefan Barnes, 31, after a 23-year-old female reported to Wall Township Police Headquarters that Barnes sexually assaulted her during a massage that occurred on May 23 at Massage Heights on Route 35 in Sea Girt, NJ. The victim told police that Barnes allegedly touched her inappropriately twice in the groin area on two separate occasions during the session. Barnes was taken into custody without incident and was later transported to Monmouth County Correctional Institution in Freehold, NJ.
When patients book a massage, it is to decompress and relax. The massage therapist-patient relationship is founded on mutual trust. Clients trust that the massage therapists employed at a spa are carefully vetted and safe. Any violation of that trust requires swift action, as it is both unacceptable and unlawful for a massage therapist to touch a client in a sexual manner.
Horowitz Law has filed numerous
sexual assault lawsuits against massage therapists on behalf of clients who were sexually assaulted during massages at day spas and resorts. If you have been a victim of sexual assault or sexual battery during a massage, or if you know someone who has, please contact our law firm at
888-283-9922 or send an e-mail to sexual abuse lawyer Adam Horowitz at
[email protected] for a free consultation.
