Two women want justice after they — and others — say they were assaulted at KC massage spa
Sometimes, when the trauma is on her mind, Lila Kubas drives by the place where she says she was sexually assaulted more than 2 ½ years ago.
She prays, “Please don’t be open. Please don’t be open.” When she sees that the massage spa along Stateline Road still is, she sits in the lot processing everything that she says happened, wondering if anyone will be held accountable.
“I thought the man would be in handcuffs that night, I thought the place would be closed down,” Kubas told The Star. “I never would have thought that two years later, that the place would still be open.”
Before her assault, Kubas later learned, two women had accused the same man of sexually abusing them at Fusion Spa, at 12931 Stateline Road in Kansas City. One reported to the business and the other to police. And three more alleged abuse after — including one woman Kubas would befriend and lean on for support.
“I don’t even understand how it could have happened to anyone following the first report,” Kubas said. “Our justice system is not protecting women the way that it needs to be.
“Every day is just like, in the back of my mind, ‘Is today going to be the day that I get the call that he’s finally in jail?’”
On Jan. 13, Kubas got that call. Six months prior, Gui Jin Jiang had been charged with two counts of second-degree sodomy. But police finally had arrested him, only for Jiang to be released on bond. He was later jailed after missing a hearing, according to an online court database.
Jiang, 65, was recently appointed a public defender. That attorney, Alexandra Valin, declined to comment to The Star. Earlier this month, his bond was reinstated and he’s scheduled for an arraignment on Monday.
A probable cause affidavit describing the charges against him show that during a police interview Jiang denied — through a translator — the allegations against him. A law enforcement officer said after he told Jiang “that he was being investigated for sexually assaulting multiple women while he massaged them, Jiang stated ‘No, there is no way that happened.’”
The Star sent a list of questions to police, asking about the investigation, why it was months before he was arrested and how many women ultimately accused Jiang. A spokesperson said he could not address any of that.
“Many of these details would be part of the ongoing investigation,” Sgt. Phil DiMartino, a spokesman with the Kansas City Police, said in an email. “For matters that have been charged I would refer you to the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.”
Jazzlyn Johnson, a spokeswoman with the prosecutor’s office, said staff received the case in late November 2023, 1 ½ years after Kubas reported her assault. Following a “thorough review and investigation,” prosecutors filed charges in July, she said.
“To maintain the integrity of the ongoing prosecution, we cannot provide further details about the case or investigation at this time,” said Johnson, who referred questions about the arrest to police.
Kubas and Natasha Culp — who reported being assaulted by Jiang during a couples massage in August 2023 — say they felt disregarded by police. They each immediately reported their alleged assaults to police, and the two criminal charges of second degree sodomy are related to their incidents.
The two say it was their civil attorney, Wes Shumate, who supported them and uncovered other alleged victims.
Shumate has represented six women in their claims against Jiang and Fusion Spa. All six civil claims have been resolved and settled, he said, some out of court. Four of the six women reported their allegations to police and were interviewed. But, at this point, only the incidents involving Kubas and Culp have been criminally charged.
The alleged abuse spanned nearly three years, from January 2021 to August 2023.
Information obtained by The Star shows that Jiang was not a licensed therapist with the Missouri Board of Therapeutic Massage during that time.
“There is no one listed as Gui Jin Jiang that has ever been licensed as a Massage Therapist in Missouri,” said Lori Croy, director of communications for the Department of Commerce & Insurance, which oversees the Professional Registration Division.
During an interview with police, “Jiang was asked if he has ever been a licensed and or a certified massage therapist in the state of Missouri to which he answered, ‘No,’” the probable cause affidavit said.
That document also shows that when interviewed about Culp’s allegations, Jiang “admitted (to detectives) that Fusion Spa knew he was not licensed to practice massage therapy.”
He further told police that he had “previously been accused of improper touching, and that Fusion Spa permitted him to perform massage therapy at the spa as staffing needs required,” according to a probable cause statement describing the charges against Jiang.
“This is a man who over and over followed the same pattern,” Shumate said. “With each one of them, he would begin to massage and just slowly work toward boundaries, until he was crossing boundaries.”
Detectives went to Fusion Spa in 2023 during the investigation into Culp’s allegations. They spoke with a woman at the front desk, who “only spoke Chinese,” according to court records. She said that Jiang, her husband, helped her with the couples massage of Culp and her fiancé.
“During a separate interview with detectives, (the woman) stated that she was present in the room anytime Jiang performed a massage,” the records said. “Anytime she saw a client react in a questionable way or overheard a client complaining she would try to warn Jiang to correct the issue.”
The Star sent messages asking for comment and more information to two email addresses associated with Fusion Spa and the owner. Those emails — as well as a second round of messages to those same addresses — were not returned.
According to Johnson County court records, Jiang’s wife, who is listed with the state of Missouri as the owner of Fusion Spa, filed for divorce in early September 2023, about a month after Culp reported her alleged assault to police. The couple’s divorce was finalized in November of that year.
Neither Kubas or Culp have spoken publicly before about what they say happened to them inside Fusion Spa while getting massages. Feeling stronger now, they spoke to The Star in an effort to help other women who, like them, have stayed in the shadows of assault.
“I can feel comfortable sharing my story,” Kubas said, “in hopes that other women might feel less shame, or they’ll know they’re not alone.”
Added Culp: “Staying silent is not going to bring any change or justice, and I think that speaking up and speaking out is the best way to find healing.”
‘I completely froze’
On May 30, 2022, Lila Kubas took her mom up on an offer to meet her for a massage at Fusion Spa. Her mother, Leslie Giarraputo, was a regular there.
A college student who had grown up getting massages, Kubas saw it as a chance to unwind. She and her mom had no idea that the man about to massage her — Jiang — wasn’t licensed.
During her visits to the spa, Giarraputo typically received massages from the owner whom she trusted, but that woman had hurt her arm so she went into a room with a new therapist. Jiang took Kubas into another.
“He didn’t speak to me at all,” Kubas said. “He just started working on me.”
Both Kubas and court records detail what happened next.
While the college student was laying face down, “Jiang never tried anything inappropriate,” the probable cause affidavit said. “He told her to turn over to her back and started massaging her head and chest. He didn’t massage her head very long before he moved to her legs and started massaging the front of her thighs.”
At one point, Kubas and the probable cause statement said, he moved her legs apart and into a “half butterfly pose.” And his hands went beneath her underwear. The assault continued from there, she said.
“I didn’t scream. I didn’t have the typical reaction that people might think of when they think of getting raped,” she said. “I froze. And I know now that that’s part of fight or flight and freeze, but I completely froze.
“My mom was in the other room. I remember being in my head, like, ‘My mom’s here, just yell for my mom.’ But I just couldn’t. I remember (thinking), ‘It’s gonna be over soon. It’s gonna be over soon.’”
When Kubas tried closing her legs to get him to stop, the probable cause affidavit said, “he pushed her legs down so he could continue … At one point he tried to grab her left hand and place it on his penis, but she was able to pull her hand away before touching his penis.”
He smacked her body. ‘You’re done,’ he said.
Outside the room, she met her mother, who was paying. Giarraputo tried to hand her daughter money for a tip.
“She pushed it away and said, ‘No!’” Lila’s mom recalled. “I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ She’s like, ‘I gotta go. I gotta go.’ And she ran out of the place.”
Giarraputo called her daughter from the car, learning what she said happened. Lila’s mom called 911 and asked for an officer to meet them at home.
After waiting, they called back and asked for an officer to meet them at the hospital. Hours later, police arrived and took a report.
Kubas said she never imagined it’d take more than two years for Jiang to be charged.
During her senior year at college, she dissociated herself from what had happened.
“I stayed in my room. I holed myself up,” Kubas said. “I didn’t hang out with my roommates. I would blackout every weekend, drinking because I was just trying to numb the pain.”
Her voice breaking, Giarraputo said that year was “very difficult.” She encouraged her daughter to move forward, talk with a therapist, focus on what was good in her life and trust that “the cops are going to do what the cops are going to do.”
“I was worried that it was going to be your classic ‘He said, she said’ situation,” Giarraputo said. “So as a mother, I was just trying to get her through it.”
Then, in December 2023 — more than a year and a half after she reported her assault — Kubas learned another woman who had come forward wanted to press charges.
She wasn’t alone.
Yet another report
Culp and her fiancé had a rare night free in August 2023. Her son was with his dad and a couples massage seemed a good way to relax.
Her usual salon was booked, so she called Fusion Spa, which was in the same strip mall as the restaurant where she was a manager and bartender.
She and her fiancé went to the room, where the owner massaged her fiancé and a man later identified as Jiang worked on her. Culp had specified that she wanted to remain on her stomach so the therapist could work on her lower back.
At first, everything seemed normal. But then she felt his body press against the side of hers. She tried to make herself smaller so her body wasn’t close to the edge.
“I kept trying to scoot closer into the middle of the table,” she said. Then, after massaging her arm, the man put it back down on the bed and rubbed her hand along his body.
His hand then got close to her breast, she said, and her mind questioned everything that was happening. Red flags went up. Was she imagining it? She stayed still, trying to convince herself it was innocent, maybe unintentional.
Yet the behavior continued with his hand moving toward her genital area and at one point, “I kind of sat up and I said, ‘Okay!’ like that. And I was kind of looking over at my fiancé, hoping that he would look at me.”
Again, she second guessed herself, according to the probable cause affidavit.
“She said in that moment she didn’t feel strong enough to say that she was feeling uncomfortable,” the document said. “After saying ‘Okay’ out loud ... she reluctantly laid back down on the table.”
Culp told The Star that, “I think a part of me knew that’s what was happening.”
“But the other part of me wanted to believe that he was being a professional,” she said. “It’s a bold accusation to make toward someone without being completely sure that’s what’s happening.”
Then, she said, he crossed a line. Violated her.
“I jumped off the bed,” she said. “And as soon as I jumped up, he ran out of the room.”
The woman massaging her fiancé asked her what was wrong and Culp said she told her she was done, she didn’t want to finish the massage, according to the probable cause statement. She needed to leave. Now. But the woman kept insisting she lie back down, Culp said, that the man would come back and ‘make her feel better.’
When the woman wouldn’t leave the room, Culp said she gathered her clothes, ran to the bathroom and changed. Before leaving the business, she quickly went to see her fiancé, who questioned what had happened.
“I said, ‘I’ll see you at home,’” Culp recalled. “‘I need to get the (heck) out of here. … He touched me.’”
When she got home she said she “felt so disgusting,” she jumped in the shower. When her fiancé got home she told him what happened and he immediately wanted to call the police. She initially worried police wouldn’t take her complaint seriously.
But she remembered seeing a young teenage girl who was at the salon with her mother when Culp and her fiancé were waiting for their massage. She worried that others could be victimized.
Culp went to the police station and filed her report that night.
Finding strength, surviving
Of the six alleged assaults that were reported to the police or the business, Culp’s was the last to occur. She was the first, however, to call Shumate for help.
About a week after the incident, an attorney friend gave her his information. Her first interaction with police, she said, left her feeling disrespected and she felt she needed help.
An officer initially began taking her report in the lobby and when she asked to go somewhere private, she said he interviewed her in the hallway. Then she felt a victim advocate was rude when she called hoping to get information on the investigation.
“I expected empathy,” Culp said. “I expected kindness and compassion, diligence, you know? I expected all of those things, and none of them happened.
“And I tell (Shumate) every day how thankful I am for him, because he was the only person that listened to me.”
After Shumate was involved, the legal process sped up, she said. She went to view a lineup and at that time, she said the detective told her she wasn’t the first woman to report this man for assault.
“I remember being so freaking mad about that,” Culp said. “Because I was like, ‘What do you mean? There was somebody before me?
“You’re telling me that this could have been prevented?’”
During the discovery process for Culp’s civil lawsuit against the business, Shumate asked for a list of witnesses and past complaints. That’s when he was given the names of Kubas and her mother, who Shumate ultimately called. The attorney soon began representing Kubas as well.
“This man was allowed to keep coming in and keep doing these things,” Shumate said. “At times, he would do it with friends or family members just outside the door. And on two of the occasions he did it during a couples massage, where they were in the same room, across the room from a fiancé or a boyfriend getting a massage.”
As the number of allegations grew, it seemed overwhelming at times, Culp said.
“I was just really angry with the justice system,” she said. “They’re supposed to be there to protect us, and they let us down.
“And because they let all those other five girls down before me, I had to suffer too.”
At one point, Kubas asked Shumate if he could connect her to the woman who had reported being assaulted more than a year after her. The two women had lunch and have become friends, continuing to comfort and lean on each other.
“She’s been my No. 1 support system through this,” Kubas said of Culp. “Nobody really can understand unless they’ve been through it.”
After she met Kubas, Culp said she discovered a “new strength.”
“I found a new reason to fight,” Culp said.” And it wasn’t just because it was for me. Now it was for me, and it was for Lila, and then it was for the next girl and the next girl and the next girl. ... When you want to quit and give up, you think about them.”
The fact that Fusion Spa has remained open is still hard. The women said while they’ve suffered, they feel Jiang and the spa haven’t.
Proposed legislation in Jefferson City, if passed, could help address that in future cases.
House Bill 58, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Sassmann, R-Bland, would allow the Board of Therapeutic Massage and the Board of Chiropractic Examiners to apply for an emergency suspension or restriction of a license for a licensed massage therapist or chiropractor after a criminal charge or indictment.
Shumate testified in favor of the legislation last session.
The measure wouldn’t automatically close a business, Sassmann said, but “this particular legislation gives them the tools to discipline their licensees and actually cause an emergency suspension of a license if they think it is necessary for the protection of the public.”
“We have to do our best to stop something like this from happening in the future,” said Sassmann, who had a constituent experience a similar incident to what Kubas and Culp say happened to them at Fusion Spa. “Bad things are going to happen. I mean, we can’t prevent that. But we can do better in government to provide those state boards with the tools they need.”
‘My mind and my body need closure’
On a Friday in early January, Kubas drove by the spa again. She sat in the lot for a while and saw a man that, from a distance, looked like Jiang.
She called her dad to come over and she waited in her car until the man she saw left. That’s when she knew she needed to confront the owner, something she’s wanted to do since May 30, 2022.
Once her dad arrived, she went into the salon alone. The owner, she said, asked her if she wanted a massage. With clients in the lobby, she said “I full-on called her out,” telling her that she was assaulted by a man in her salon. The woman, Kubas said, told her she was confused and eventually went to the back of the spa.
“I felt very empowered,” Kubas said. “I just had to say my peace. ... I wish I would have been able to fight back two years ago, but my body and brain wasn’t capable of that at that point.”
She told Culp what she had done.
“That stirred up a lot of emotions in me,” Culp said. “I think because I want nothing more than to be able to go in there and do that. I feel like my mind and my body need closure. I didn’t get to stand up for myself, you know, I ran out of there so fast.
“I didn’t have the opportunity to say anything or to stand up for myself. … I was envious I wasn’t with her.”
After she said she was assaulted inside Fusion Spa, Culp said she “didn’t have a lot of trust to give anybody.
“I didn’t go to the chiropractor anymore,” she said. “I quit my job. I quit going to the gym. I went out and got my conceal and carry license..
“I think it put a lot of fear in me.”
Today is different. She’s gone back to school to become a therapist so she can help others who have been assaulted.
“The next person that has to go through this kind of just spark something in me, “ she said. “It just makes me want to give back and make an impact on somebody else’s life that’s gone through the same thing that I have.”
Together, with the help of their families and each other, the two women say they are stronger. And pushing forward with their lives.
Kubas moved to California in early February, leaving Johnson County behind. She’s grateful she was able to go inside the spa and confront the owner before she left town.
“It felt like I had just been holding stuff in, like I’ve been in freeze mode the past two years since it happened, and I felt like I got my power back, you know?” she said. “I’m at the point where I’m very much in like fight mode. I’m ready to fight back.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
