A Brooklyn woman has filed suit against at-home massage app Soothe, claiming she was raped by one of their masseurs — who had previously sexually assaulted another customer, according to court documents.
The woman, who is going by “Jane Doe,” said during a press conference Tuesday that she is terrified the “monster” will go back to her Bedford-Stuyvesant home and has even considered moving because of the horrific alleged attack.
“I’ve been traumatized by this event,” the woman said in a prerecorded video with her face blurred. “Since he knows where I live, I have the fear of this monster returning to my home.”
The victim’s husband had ordered the massage for her on Valentine’s day because he was out of town — but the romantic gift soon turned into a nightmare, according to her Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit filed Monday.
The masseur – who went by the fake name “Hernando Giraldo” – arrived to her home and “sexually assaulted and raped her before fleeing,” the suit alleges.
Giraldo “was a sexual predator and had been previously arrested for sexually assaulting another female Soothe customer,” according to the lawsuit.
He’s still at large, the filing states.
The woman said she now wakes up “a million times at night to the slightest sound in fear of another attack.”
“This fear is so strong that I’ve seriously considered moving, upending my life just to flee the grasp of this predator Soothe sent to my doorstep,” she said in the video played at the news conference.
She said the attack, “shocked me to the core,” adding that she’s suing “to seek justice for the way my life has been destroyed by the negligence of Soothe and others.”
The victim claims that Soothe, a wellness app that also allows customers to get other services like facials and haircuts at home, was negligent in hiring Giraldo, according to her suit.
Soothe enlists outside company Evident ID, Inc. to conduct background checks on its employees.
The woman is suing both Soothe and Evident claiming they failed to carry out the proper background check and criminal monitoring of Giraldo and negligently allowed him to rape her.
She is suing for unspecified damages.
“While Soothe, Inc. tells its customers that it conducts background checks and ongoing criminal monitoring on all Soothe massage therapists, it sent a sexual predator with a documented history of sexually assaulting a woman to Doe’s home where he raped her,” attorney Nathan Werksman, who reps the woman, said in a statement.
“With this lawsuit, Doe hopes to recover from the unbelievable trauma of being raped in her own home and to protect others from suffering a similar fate.”
Cops are investigating his client’s allegations, Werksman said. Investigators collected DNA off of a scarf from her home, the lawyer added.
Soothe and Evident didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Original article written by Steven Vago and Priscilla DeGregory and published in the NY Post.
