Monroe massage therapist sentenced

Monroe massage therapist Charles Crawford asked to address the court before receiving his sentencing on Tuesday, Sept. 5. He reiterated the inappropriate touching female clients experienced during his sessions at the Wellbeing Center for Health was unintentional.

He said God also witnessed what happened with one of his clients, that it was the three of them in the room that day. The 69-year-old said he forgave her for lying about what occurred.

A man shouted, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” from the small audience in attendance at the hearing before Judge George Appel in Snohomish County Superior Court. The woman beside him was quietly crying.

“Well, Mr. Crawford, the jury didn’t believe you, and I don’t believe you,” Appel said. “You have done a tremendous amount of damage and have shown no real remorse.”

Appel ordered Crawford to serve just less than two years in the Snohomish County Jail. Time he has already spent in custody was not reduced from the sentence.

A jury found Crawford guilty of indecent liberties with a patient and fourth-degree assault on June 30. The Monroe resident had been working at the Wellbeing Center as a licensed massage therapist for Health for nearly a decade.

The first accusations against him came out in February 2016.

The Monroe Police Department responded to allegations that Crawford, who is legally blind, had inappropriately touched a client during a 90-minute session. Two more women came forward last September.

A 41-year-old woman reported the inappropriate touching occurred as Crawford massaged her leg and inner-thigh in February 2016. She told officers the contact lasted for about a minute, and at first she thought it might have been unintentional. Then it happened a second time when he had moved on to her other leg.

Crawford had also whispered to the woman that her “perfume smelled wonderful.” She described the incident as “creepy and frightening.” She also told police she used force to keep Crawford’s hands from going under the blanket as he massaged her chest area, where he came too close to her breasts multiple times.

The victim had reported the incident to Wellbeing Center for Health owner Patti Glenn and the Washington State Department of Health. Crawford denied the inappropriate touching, but then said it may have happened. In a letter directed to DOH, he wrote he was aware he had touched the woman, but “the touching was in performance of his job and that any touching would have been unintentional.”

Crawford told the court Tuesday that he had 20-30 character witnesses lined up, and had he been able to bring them before the jury there would have been no question he was telling the truth. He called his wife an “innocent victim,” as the fallout had come to rest on her shoulders.

“It’s just unfair, it’s totally unfair,” he said.

The couple was being forced to sell their home, Crawford said, as the work that needed to be done there was too much for his wife to manage on her own.

Crawford said testimony from the victims seemed well rehearsed, and they likely had been told what to say. He said he believed the whole process “is just a witch hunt.”

Deputy prosecuting attorney Wallace Langbehn had asked that Crawford receive the maximum sentence for both counts. The touching wasn’t simply a mistake as the massage therapist, she said.

“They came to him for healing, they came to him for help,” Langbehn said.

He said Crawford has said his compromised eyesight actually helps him at his profession. It was when these women were most vulnerable did the massage therapist use his position to violate their trust, he said.

Defense attorney Karen Halverson asked Appel to consider Crawford’s medical condition while making his decision. The symptoms he experiences that relate to his eyesight require medical attention about every month. She also said conditions, such as requiring a sexual deviancy evaluation, doesn’t apply because her client admitted to his behavior.

Crawford will also have to pay $800 in fines and also restitution, which Langbehn did not have an estimate for at the time of the sentencing. He will have to participate in a sexual deviancy evaluation, and is not allowed to have contact with one of his former patients.

Crawford will have to make his first minimum payment of $50 within two months of his release, and have restitution paid off within four years.

Crawford has the right to appeal the sentence.