http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ci=108&ch=style&sc=grooming&sc2=news&sc3=&id=18236
ORT WORTH, Texas - A cosmetic center owner was acquitted Friday on a charge of sexually assaulting a customer during a laser hair removal procedure on her bikini line.
Jimmy E. Adams, 59, had been charged with one count of sexual assault, but several other customers testified that they were fondled and sexually assaulted at the North Richland Hills Cosmetic Procedures Center. Adams had faced up to 20 years in prison.
Adams’ family took him to a hospital after he was acquitted because he may have aggravated an existing heart condition or had a minor stroke, said his attorney, Mark G. Daniel. He refused to say which hospital Adams went to or release his client’s condition Friday afternoon.
Tarrant County jurors deliberated about nine hours over two days, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in its online edition Friday.
In closing arguments Thursday, Daniel said the case had blatant inconsistencies.
“If you believe this had occurred, someone would have screamed. Someone would have stormed out of the room, but no one did,” Daniel said. “His wife was 15 to 20 feet away. How could it occur with her so close?”
Daniel said the center, which opened in 1999 in the Fort Worth suburb, was a highly respected center that had seen 2,500 to 3,000 customers in that time.
But prosecutors called Adams, who did not testify, a predator who duped customers into trusting him.
“Do you actually believe if this did not happen that these women would testify?” prosecutor Page Simpson asked jurors. “These women did not want to be confrontational when it happened, but it’s taken a tremendous amount of courage to have testified.”
Simpson said the testimony of at least four customers showed that what Adams did was not an accident or a mistake.
In some cases, after a cosmetic procedure, Adams offered to do a laser hair removal on a bikini line for free, according to court documents.
Adams also faces at least five civil lawsuits against him related to the sexual assault allegations.
Tarrant County criminal records show that Adams was indicted in 1983 on a charge of indecency with a child. He was later sentenced to two years’ probation with deferred adjudication, records show.
In accordance with the law, the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the charge in 1985 after Adams completed his probation.