This article has details related to sexual assault accusations and may not be suitable for all readers.
Inside Investigator was recently made aware of a massage parlor located in Avon, Connecticut, which has been the site of five alleged sexual assaults in the past five years. One of the alleged victims, who will be referred to as Jane Doe for the sake of her anonymity, shared her story with Inside Investigator in hopes that it might encourage other victims to come forward.
“I’ve already lost everything, I have nothing more to lose,” said Doe. “So this should come out, and if anybody reads this story and finds out and feels, you know, maybe something did happen [to them], then they should feel comfortable enough knowing they are doing the right thing by coming forward.”
The Avon parlor in which these assaults are alleged to have occurred is a franchise location of Elements Massage, a company that oversees 250 massage parlors across the country. Elements has four other parlors in Connecticut, with locations in Branford, Meriden, Fairfield and Ridgefield. Elements is one of five wellness franchises owned, overseen and operated by Wellbiz Brands Inc, a Colorado-based company. Inside Investigator requested comment from Elements’ attorney for this suit, but has not received a response.
Since Doe filed her complaint, three other anonymous litigants have filed suit against Alfonso Morris, an Elements Avon masseuse, for alleged sexual assault. Prior to Doe’s suit, in 2021, another woman accused Adrian Scott Roberts, an Elements Avon masseuse at the time, of sexual assault. Scott Roberts had his massage therapy license revoked by the state’s Department of Public Health (DPH) in 2022.
Doe’s attorney, Elisabeth Swanson, said the business is still open. “I don’t know what the Department of Health has done,” she told Inside Investigator in an interview, “These reports have been made to the Department of Public Health, and as far as I know, Elements continues to operate as usual.”
“Every aspect of my life has been uprooted and completely obliterated,” said Doe. “It’s devastated us, my family, and I don’t know how to come out of it.”
In the complaint, which was filed on May 13, 2024, Doe accused Naim Shaikh, one of Element’s masseuses, of having assaulted her during a massage she had scheduled on July 6, 2022. Doe stripped down to her underwear before lying down on the massage bed and sliding under a privacy sheet which covered her body up to her armpits. Doe said Shaikh, “groped her breasts, placed his mouth on her left breast, laid on her chest, choked her, covered her mouth with hands, and digitally penetrated her with his hands,” before “placing his mouth on her right breast.” Inside Investigator requested comment from Shaikh via email, but did not receive a response.
“During the above-described sexual assault and abuse, Plaintiff experienced extreme fear, embarrassment, and disbelief as to what was occurring,” reads the complaint. “As a result, she froze and was unable to remove herself from the abusive and threatening situation created by the defendant.”
Doe told Inside Investigator that she had frequented Elements for “two or more years” prior to the incident and that she would go with whatever masseuse was available at the time of her appointment. Per the suit, Doe was alone in the room with Shaikh at the time of the alleged assault, while a receptionist worked out front.
Shaikh has since been fired, but as of this time, Shaikh’s massage therapy license is still active in Connecticut. Doe said she filed a complaint against Shaikh with DPH officials within a month of the alleged assault and has periodically followed up with them since, but has been repeatedly told that their investigation into him is ongoing. Inside Investigator emailed DPH’s Physical Therapist Licensure email address, requesting comment for this story as well as an explanation of their investigation process, but has received no response at this time. Doe said she also attempted to press criminal charges, but Hartford prosecutors declined to proceed due to a lack of evidence.
“I have reached out to the Department of Public Health on many occasions, and said, ‘What’s going on with my complaint?’ because I put in a complaint to them about it within the month after the incident, and they kind of went dark,” said Doe. “Once every six months to a year, I send an email and say, ‘What’s going on? How come you’re not doing anything?’”
Doe says she last asked DPH for a status update on the investigation on Jan. 26, 2025. She forwarded Inside Investigator DPH’s response, saying all previous responses have “been replies like this one.”
“Your referenced petition is being actively investigated,” replied David Slater, a Special Investigator for DPH’s Practitioner Investigations Unit. “Unfortunately, I am unable to provide further details regarding the investigation because the petition is confidential. You will be notified in writing as to the outcome of the investigation.”
Doe said that she works as a housecleaner, but that she has repeatedly had to turn down new clients because of the “severe trust issues” she’s developed as a result of the alleged assault.
“I can’t gain any new business because I’m terrified to walk into a stranger’s home, because in my mind, every stranger is a threat,” said Doe. “I’ve made attempts to take on new business, and I’ve found myself even driving to the new people’s homes in my car, pulling over and canceling, because I just cannot physically bring myself into somebody’s home.”
Doe said she has since been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety and severe depression, and that the incident has strained her relationship with family and “financially devastated us” as a result of the limitations it’s put on her business.
“We had to file for bankruptcy,” said Doe. “I’m currently in foreclosure. I’ve got about four months left in my house before I have to leave, I’m trying to find a place to live for me and my five kids.”
The original complaint accused Shaikh of intentional assault, accused Shaikh and Elements of negligent infliction of emotional distress, and accused Elements alone of negligence, negligent hiring, and vicarious liability. The court has since granted Doe the ability to amend the complaint to accuse Elements of violating Connecticut’s Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA). In response, Elements attorneys have since motioned for summary judgment against Doe’s claims of negligence, vicarious liability and CUTPA violations, primarily on the grounds that they shouldn’t be held accountable for the actions of one employee’s “criminal and unauthorized acts that were directly in contradiction to the training, policies, procedures, and practices of the Franchisee and Franchisor.” If granted, the judge would then rule on these counts using all the evidence currently at their disposal, without taking the suit to trial.
One of Doe’s most recent motions objects to the request for summary judgment, including evidence to assert that this problem goes beyond this one particular location or employee, but is downstream of Elements’ and Wellbiz’s business practices. The motion includes nine separate news articles from various publications chronicling sexual assault or misconduct allegations raised against Elements employees nationwide. Doe’s motion also claims that since the current case and the other three allegations raised against Morris have yet to be reported, the true number of allegations against Elements employees “is likely staggering.”
“By the defendant’s own admission, Elements Corporate mandated uniform branding, imposed system- wide ethics and draping rules, rules governing intimate physical contact, required annual sexual misconduct training, and marketed a safe, professional massage experience upon which consumers reasonably relied,” reads the motion. “Connecticut law does not permit a franchisor to reap the benefits of consumer trust while disclaiming responsibility when that trust is betrayed. “
Elements’ Avon location was purchased by Shari and Paul Lucas on June 10, 2022. In her deposition for the suit, Shari Lucas detailed the purchasing process of the business; both she and her husband, and the Avon location’s prior owner, Mike Burnham, were assigned a lawyer by Elements’ corporate to oversee the sale process. Lucas said that she was largely left in the dark about the finer details of the business she was purchasing; she was not provided payroll or inventory reports, just a “standard agreement” to sign, and Lucas said that all “due diligence” was done by the lawyer assigned to her.
“They [Burnham] left us no paperwork,” said Lucas in a deposition included in the motion linked above (Exhibit A, starting on page 30). “They kind of just took everything with them when they had left the business.”
Lucas said in the deposition that she retained all the staff from Burnham’s time as owner. When asked in her deposition whether she knew that a former employee, Adrian Scott Roberts, was accused of sexually assaulting a client at the location a year prior to her purchasing it, Lucas said she did not. Lucas noted in her deposition that she believed all employees’ training was up to date at the time of her purchase. A screenshot of the training portal included in Doe’s motion shows that Shaikh only completed four training modules, “and none having to do with appropriate touch, conduct, or draping.”
Lucas said that, to the best her knowledge, there isn’t any training on what to do if a client is “being inappropriate towards a massage therapist,” that she wasn’t sure if employees had to complete sexual assault or harassment trainings, and that she did not herself receive an operations manual from corporate until September 2022, two months after Doe’s alleged assault. She also did not know whether Shaikh had been provided an operations manual or any additional training materials regarding therapist conduct and safety procedures. Lucas said that after she became aware of the alleged assault, she “called WellBiz first to explain to them what happened,” and was told to fill out an incident report and notify Lockton-Affinity, a provider of sexual assault liability insurance that Elements requires all of its franchises to purchase coverage through.
Doe told Inside Investigator that there were “a lot of deciding factors” as to why she wished to share her story, one of which was Shaikh’s deposition. Included in Doe’s most recent motion is both Shaikh’s deposition, as well as an Avon police report summarizing an interview Shaikh had with officers. Shaikh told police that Doe was “being a little flirty,” and initiated, encouraged, and enjoyed the contact, and that he “felt troubled after this incident and just shut down.” In both his deposition and police interview, he said his hand slipped into her vagina as a result of her moving her leg, and that the two engaged in sexually explicit conversations.
“When I had finally read his deposition, his side of the story, what he said occurred — that sent me spiraling, and not in a good way,” said Doe. “I kept that tucked in the back of my head, because I’m still trying to grapple with the fact of his claims of what occurred.”
Doe also considered the possibility that what allegedly occurred to her might happen to others.
“Maybe it’s still happening there,” said Doe. “I have three daughters, and I don’t think that it’s — It’s just not okay. It’s not okay, it’s got to stop. Everything’s got to come out, we can’t keep sweeping it under the rug anymore. It’s just not fair, it’s not right.”
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