A trio of African-American women claim they were falsely detained by cops for several hours after staff at a massage parlor in downtown Brooklyn accused them of using a stolen credit card.
The women were about to start a girls’ day of fun to celebrate a birthday at Massage Envy in Brooklyn Heights on Feb. 19 when four plainclothes police officers suddenly came into their private room around 1:30 p.m. and began questioning them.
The cops were called after a staffer at the massage parlor believed that the CitiBank credit card being used by Kimmell McIntosh, 35, actually belonged to another customer.
The last four digits on the credit card used to book the massage were nearly identical to those on the card of a different client, a police source said.
Unaware of the mixup, the police asked McIntosh and her friends to show their IDs and pressed them to admit the card was filched, the women said.
“They also said they were going to bring in the woman who owned the card,” said McIntosh’s cousin, Melanie Henry, 33.
After talking it over for about 10 minutes, the cops handcuffed and hauled McIntosh and another cousin, Maxine Henry, 43, and brought them to the 84th Precinct stationhouse a few blocks away. Melanie Henry was not detained.
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“We thought it was a prank,” said McIntosh, a city Education Department staffer. “We were waiting for the cameras and Ashton Kutcher.”
Cops searched the two women and put them into holding cells for about three hours.
They had been “taken into custody based on information from Massage Envy,” a police spokeswoman said. “After investigation, it was determined the individuals did not commit any crimes and the arrests were voided.”
That was little solace to the women, whose “girl’s day off turned into a nightmare,” Maxine Henry said.
McIntosh and Maxine Henry plan to sue the NYPD and Massage Envy, contending they were racially profiled and unfairly detained. Melanie Henry said she’ll also sue the massage parlor, claiming she was racially profiled. Each of the women is seeking $1 million in damages.
A rep for Massage Envy said the Arizona-based company was “working with the franchisee to gather more information and review the incident.”
