KC-area woman speaks out after alleged rape during massage. ‘I know there are others’
Katie Aldis is OK with you knowing her name and a bit about who she is, how she works in healthcare and is a major in the U.S. Army Reserves.
She especially wants you to see her face and hear from her what she said happened in Baldwin City, Kansas, during a massage on a Friday afternoon last month. Because maybe then, more women who may have experienced a similar sexual assault or battery will reach out to police, taking comfort in the realization that they’re not alone.
“I know there are other victims,” Aldis, 54, told The Star this week. “I felt like it was important to put my face out there so that other people who maybe have had the same experience with this individual would feel strong enough to come forward.
“ ... You can be a very intelligent, strong individual and still can be prey to this sort of thing.”
Om Grown Yoga, Baldwin City
Aldis told police on April 3 that, during a massage at Om Grown Yoga in Baldwin City that same day, her therapist sexually assaulted her. Aldis’ report led to an arrest a few days later and prompted the town’s police chief to issue a news release and ask others who may have had “inappropriate contact” with the massage therapist to reach out to a detective.
Within two days, another seven women came forward. And now Aldis said she wonders if there are even more.
Aaron P. Borger, 44, is charged in Douglas County District Court with two counts of felony rape, five counts of felony aggravated sexual battery and four counts of misdemeanor sexual battery, according to online court records. Borger worked as a part-time massage therapist at Om Grown Yoga and at a chiropractor’s office in Grandview, Missouri, police said.
The alleged crimes at the Baldwin City yoga studio are said to have happened between March 2024 and April 2026. Allegations stemming from that time period are in a detailed court affidavit describing the charges against Borger. At least three women told police that an owner or owners of Om Grown Yoga were notified about concerns regarding Borger and what they described as inappropriate contact in 2024.
Yoga studio responds
After Borger’s arrest last month, Om Grown Yoga posted a statement on its Facebook page to share “some difficult news” that a “massage therapist previously associated with our studio has been arrested on serious charges.”
“While these legal proceedings are ongoing, we want to be very clear: the safety, sanctity, and trust of our students and clients are our highest priorities,” the post said. “We have zero tolerance for any behavior that compromises the safety or dignity of those in our care.”
A woman reached by phone at Om Grown Yoga Tuesday said she was an owner, but did not want to be named.
When asked if owners had been notified at least three times in 2024 that there were concerns with Borger and inappropriate contact, she said she could not comment.
“Right now we are supporting the victims and the process of justice and not commenting on this,” she said. “Our thoughts are with them, and we’re doing whatever we can to support the process.”
Aldis said she’s gotten several massages at the wellness collective before and she and her husband would regularly go there on Wednesday evenings for Community Soak, Sauna and Plunge events. And Borger, who she and her husband “kind of knew,” would often greet them at the door and “chit-chat” at times.
“We had an element of safety,” she said. “We knew the studio. ... I thought for sure we were in a safe space, a protected environment.”
But, in the end, she said, she wasn’t.
“There are eight of us in total that have come forward on this one particular individual,” Aldis said. “And I know that there are more people out there. He worked in Baldwin City, Kansas, and he also worked in a chiropractic studio over in Grandview, Missouri.
“My reason for coming forward is to find those victims.”
The day of the massage
Twice a year, Aldis takes a physical fitness test for the Army. Knowing the test was coming up, she booked a 60-minute massage — a birthday gift from her husband — for April 3, Good Friday.
She believed a “myofascial release massage” would help with pain she was having. Other patrons had recommended Borger for that type of massage.
Soon after arriving for the massage, Aldis told police, she and Borger discussed “areas of discomfort on her body,” according to the court affidavit. She discussed issues with her lower back which would flare up at times while doing the dishes or bending over the sink to brush her teeth.
At one point, Borger began by massaging her back, Aldis told police, but she said he eventually touched intimate parts of her body, including her pubic area and breasts. As the massage progressed, she said, the sheets covering private parts of her body became uncovered, and she thought to herself that it was wrong.
During the massage, Borger told her he was testing her mobility while touching her pubic area, court records show. Aldis described second-guessing whether she was right for feeling uncomfortable because she had never had this type of massage and didn’t know what to expect.
Then, she said, he crossed a line. Violated her.
As court records describe it:
“She stated that he immediately moved on to another area for a brief time, but asked her to check ‘range of motion’ once more shortly thereafter,” the court record said. “She indicated that she was hesitant and became uncomfortable, explaining that what happened next would let her know whether the first time was a slip.”
While talking with The Star, Aldis said she thought to herself at that time in the massage that if “it was an accident or something like that, he won’t go back in that area. He’ll stay away from that area.”
But, she said, he soon violated her again. And this time it was for a longer period of time.
“I was very sure about what was going on,” she said. “I counted out in my mind, one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand to make very sure of what was going on, and that I was not incorrectly accusing somebody of something.”
She said she didn’t know what would happen next, and kept looking at a brown medical bag he had nearby. She said her mind raced with questions.
What’s in that bag? she remembers thinking. Is there anyone else in this building? Probably not. It’s almost six o’clock on Good Friday in a tiny town. Probably not.
Another thought quickly consumed her: I just need to get out of this room.
She eventually did and discovered what was supposed to be a 60-minute massage was 1 hour, 47 minutes. From her car, she called her best friend and told her what had happened.
“And she’s like, ‘You’ve been assaulted,’” Aldis said.
Initially, the thought of reporting to police what happened seemed overwhelming. She wondered if she just never got a massage there again, she could move past it. But after talking with her best friend and husband, she said she knew what she needed to do.
“Anyone that would be coming after me (for a massage) would be at risk for the same sort of violation,” she said. “If I don’t say something, he’s going to do it next week, he’s going to keep doing this stuff. And so I thought, ‘Well, best to make sure whoever it happened to before has clarity and that it doesn’t continue to happen.’”
She drove straight from the parking lot of Om Grown Yoga that Friday evening to the parking lot of the police station.
Other women come forward
The post on the Baldwin Police Department’s Facebook page went up just after 3 p.m. on April 8.
Police Chief Mike Pattrick said his department had just arrested “a 44-year-old Lyon County man on suspicion of committing two counts of rape and one count of aggravated sexual battery.” The alleged incident, he said, occurred the week before during a massage at Om Grown Yoga in Baldwin City.
“Anyone who believes they may have had inappropriate contact with Mr. Borger, whether in Baldwin City or any other location, may contact Detective Vanessa Garza, at 785-594-3850 or via email at vschmalz@baldwincity.gov,” the post said. “The investigation is ongoing.”
What the release from police didn’t say is that the day before, on April 7, two members of the police department went to Aldis’ home and she made a phone call to Borger as part of the investigation. After multiple attempts to reach him, Borger called her back just before 4:30 that day and “the call was recorded for the duration which spanned 7 min and 44 seconds,” the court affidavit said.
With the two officers at the table with her, Aldis identified herself to Borger as someone who received a massage from him the previous Friday. According to court records, “he affirmed that he remembered this.”
After Aldis scheduled a follow-up appointment with Borger — an attempt to build rapport — she indicated that she had some questions about the massage she had received from him.
“She asked if she should expect to spend over an hour and a half with him again and whether she should schedule a longer session,” the court affidavit said, “and he stated that the first session typically ran long because he didn’t want anyone to leave before they were ‘balanced’ and ‘I don’t really want to just, like, get ya halfway there.’”
“When he asked if he recommended sixty or ninety minutes for the next session, he stated ninety would be better.”
The court records show that Aldis specifically asked him about his actions during a part of the massage:
“When you got to the part where you put your fingers in my vagina and you were kind of pressing inside there and everything, is that for like pelvic floor release or, what’s the intent for that ... is that a standard part of it?” she asked him, according to the court affidavit. “Aaron responded and said ‘Well yeah, we hit that the very first time and mostly, yeah, that was to release a lot of that pelvic floor stuff ... just as tight as it was ... but I wouldn’t say it was standard it was more like it was so tight that time that we just kind of tried to get as much of that to release as possible.”
Hours after Police Chief Pattrick posted his message on Facebook, one woman contacted police. The next day several more reached out and spoke with a detective, all sharing details from their interactions with the therapist during their massages.
By the afternoon of April 10, one week after Aldis said she was assaulted, a total of seven additional women reported to police that they were assaulted or molested by Borger during a massage. Those seven accounts — which were in addition to what Aldis reported — led to the charges, including details from one woman who described an alleged rape similar to what Aldis told police happened to her.
“I was a little bit comforted in the fact that I was not the only one,” Aldis said. “This was eight of us. This is just what this guy does.
“And I was angry that people knew about it and it wasn’t dealt with,” she said. “Because if that had been handled, I would not have been assaulted.”
‘Unable to think or react’
Until she read the 18-page court statement supporting the charges, Aldis didn’t know what the other women reported having encountered.
“You could read the document and lose track of whom you’re reading about,” Aldis said, “because the situations were just the same, similar.”
When police interviewed women who had reached out, three indicated that owners were contacted about Borger in 2024. In one case, according to the court affidavit, a woman who said she was assaulted in May 2024 told police that her husband “spoke with the owners on the phone on her behalf to lodge the complaint.”
“The owners indicated they didn’t have any other complaints at the time, apologized, refunded them and canceled her next appointment.”
Another woman told police she called the owner of the yoga studio after she said she was assaulted in June 2024 “and spoke with her about the situation,” the affidavit said.
“She stated the owner told her they were no longer going to have Aaron alone with any clients,” the record said, “but never followed up on whether this has been enforced.”
Several victims, according to the court documents, also mentioned to police that they froze or were unable to think or react.
“And it’s really true,” Aldis said. “It happens super quick. Your mind does not catch up to things as they’re occurring. And then it’s after the fact, where your mind catches up.
“That brings feelings of like, ‘I should have done this, I should have done that. I should have, you know, punched the person in the mouth, or I should have ran.’ All of these are ‘I should have’ things, but your brain just doesn’t catch up that fast.
Before her alleged assault, Aldis said she didn’t know that was a “phenomenon.”
“I’ve learned, having talked to enough people about this now, that this is a really normal thing to happen,” she said. “So if you are a person that had this happen to you and you have not reported it, don’t feel bad about that, because it’s very common.”
Reporting what she says happened to her, and doing whatever she could to help police, is her way of not only protecting others from something happening to them but comforting others who may have been assaulted, Aldis said.
“There is a lot of peace and healing when you know, you’re not alone,” Aldis said. “There are people out there that this has happened to that are alone in that and they have not been able to see that there are other people that went through the same thing.”
She said she doesn’t want people to second-guess how they reacted to what happened.
“What’s important is to get that out,” she said, “get that truth out and get past it.”
After the initial news release from Baldwin City police, Aldis said she felt more was needed. And though it’s hard to speak out, she’s glad she is.
“It really feels like taking the power back,” she said. “I think you unfortunately have to have a face of someone that’s like, ‘This happened to me.’ Even though it’s excruciatingly personal ... if it happened to you, please let somebody know.
“Let your voice be heard.”
The Star’s Kendrick Calfee contributed.
