Massage Envy DC Hit With $25 Million Lawsuit After Therapist Sexually Assaulted Client

On the afternoon of September 17, 2017, Tara Woodley arrived at the Massage Envy franchise in the Tenleytown neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C., for a scheduled 90-minute session. Near the end of the appointment, masseur Habtamu Gebreselassie removed the sheet covering her and committed a sexual act against her without consent. Woodley lifted her eye pillow, saw what was happening, and covered herself. "What!" she shouted. She told him, "We're done here. We're done here," then called police.

Officers arrested Gebreselassie at the facility the same day. As investigators built the criminal case, a fuller picture of how Massage Envy had handled earlier complaints emerged. Gebreselassie had been accused of a prior assault at a company location in Bowie, Maryland, and of misconduct at a second DC massage business on P Street NW. After one prior incident at the Tenleytown location, management wrote an internal report and gave Gebreselassie additional training but kept him on the schedule and never contacted law enforcement.

Attorneys Kim Brooks-Rodney, Adam Leighton, and Wayne Cohen of Cohen and Cohen filed the civil lawsuit in DC Superior Court in September 2017 against Gebreselassie, the corporate entity Massage Envy LLC, and the local franchisee ME DC LLC. The complaint sought $25 million and alleged that the company's failure to act on earlier accusations, and its decision to retain Gebreselassie rather than notify police, made it responsible for the assault on Woodley.

Gebreselassie pleaded guilty in December 2017 to first-degree sexual abuse of a patient, attempted first-degree sexual abuse of a patient, and misdemeanor sexual abuse, covering three victims across two DC locations. On February 16, 2018, a DC Superior Court judge sentenced him to five years in prison and ordered lifetime sex offender registration. Prosecutors expected he would also face deportation after completing his sentence.

The civil case proceeded on a separate track. Massage Envy moved to compel arbitration, pointing to a clause in the intake contract Woodley had signed at check-in. Cohen and Cohen argued the arbitration provision was buried in the document and should not bar a public court proceeding. DC Superior Court Judge Florence Pan sided with Massage Envy on July 29, 2018, sending the case to private arbitration. No arbitration award has been made public.

Woodley chose to use her real name in media coverage, one of the first Massage Envy assault victims nationally to do so. Her attorneys said going public was a deliberate step to press the company to change its screening and supervision practices for massage staff.