Woman says she was sexually assaulted by manicurist at salon

By Jenna Rae

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    FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Illinois (KMOV) — A Fairview Heights manicurist is facing multiple charges after a woman told News 4 she was sexually assaulted while getting her nails done.

On Sunday, Shenelle Johnson went to Lynn Nails in Fairview Heights to get her eyebrows and eyelashes done. She ended up getting a manicure and pedicure as well.

“I had told him from the beginning, I said, ‘well I’m paralyzed from the waist down,'” recalled Johnson, who has been going to the business for years. “I felt my feet slide up under something at first, and I looked at him strange. He said, ‘Do you feel this, do you feel this?’ And I’m like ‘What?’ and he said, ‘Don’t worry about it.'”

Johnson said after the nail technician asked her several times if she could feel anything, she became weary. “I snuck my phone under the table, and I kept joking with him over the table so he wouldn’t think nothing suspicious was going on,” she told News 4.

While recording, Johnson said her phone died. However, when she got into her car and charged her phone, she saw something very obscene. News 4 has chosen not to publish this video due to the man’s genitals being exposed.

“You’re rubbing your private parts all over me,” Johnson said. “I mean, it was just unbelievable.”

Johnson called and filed a formal report with the Fairview Heights Police Department. She also took to Facebook to vent. News 4 found several other people commenting on Johnson’s original post.

One person said, “He [is] so disrespectful and he always wanna do people’s feet under the table.”

Another commented, “I was literally just there and he was acting weird. I told them to give him something to do because he was acting weird and anxious.”

Lynn Nails owner, Lynn Kim, posted on Facebook after Johnson shared her video and experience. In the post, Kim wrote the employee was set up by Johnson and claimed he is easily tricked by others. News 4s’ Jenna Rae went to the salon Wednesday to talk to Kim. Kim told Rae she needed someone to translate for her.

One of the nail technicians in the shop when Rae arrived said they didn’t know about Johnson’s incident until the employee was arrested. They said they don’t accept his actions, and that it was inappropriate.

“When I watch this video, this can’t be the first time. It doesn’t look like it. I would’ve never thought nothing like this to do up under a nail table,” Johnson said.

Johnson told News 4 she’s been getting inappropriate comments on social media saying that she instigated the employee to do this. Johnson said she just wants people to know she’s trying to look out for anyone who goes in there and hopes this doesn’t happen to someone else.

Employees inside the nail salon said the man has since been fired.

The morning after News 4’s report aired, the Fairview Heights Police Department announced that Peter Tran had been arrested and charged in the alleged incident. The 24-year-old from St. Louis has been charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, aggravated battery of a handicapped person and public indecency. His bond was set at $85,000.

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