Credit: Bucks County District Attorney’s Office
A jury convicted a Bensalem man of sexually assaulting two women in Falls Township last year but acquitted him on a charge related to him vaginally penetrating a victim.
David Elijah Ward, 37, was convicted Friday on two misdemeanor counts of indecent assault related to the summer 2016 incidents that happened at the Hand and Stone Spa on North Oxford Valley Road in Falls.
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President Judge Jeffery Finley deferred sentencing until Ward is assessed by the Pennsylvania Sexual Offenders Assessment Board.
The trial came to an end Friday after more than three hours of jury deliberations.
Court papers state that Ward touched a 26-year-old customer inappropriately during a massage.
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“I wanted to get out of there,” the victim testified. “I didn’t feel safe. I wanted to go home and take a shower.”
A few days after the first assault, a second customer – a 52-year-old woman – told police she had a similar incident happen during a massage with Ward.
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“Are you uncomfortable?” Ward allegedly asked the 52 year old during the assault.
“Yes,” the woman replied.
“I’m sorry,” he reportedly responded.
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The 52-year-old victim said she was “so scared that my objective was to get out of that place.”
Once the woman left the spa, she told a male friend she met what happened during the assault.
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She later called Hand and Stone’s corporate office to report the assault; the company fired Ward.
Ward was represented by defense attorney Lou Busico and claimed he “never” violated the two women.
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Busico made the case that both the women failed to confront Ward following the assault and did not contact police immediately.
“If you’re touched in a way that you don’t want to be touched, do you leave a 40 percent tip and then go have a drink?” the defense attorney said of the 52 year old’s testimony.
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The two victims did not know one another, and the second victim was reluctant during the investigation.
“I don’t want to be here,” she testified, but added: “I didn’t want him to be in a position where he could do this to someone else.”
Deputy District Attorney Kristin M. McElroy said Ward will no longer be able to work as a licensed massage therapist.
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“When you go in for a massage, there are certain areas of your body that you expect to be touched,” McElroy said. “Your vagina is not one of them.”
