Man arrested in sex assaults of touch therapy clients

A Carson City man was arrested Thursday after a second woman came forward to claim he allegedly sexually assaulted her during a "touch therapy" session.

Edmund Jakopchek, 50, was booked into the Carson City Jail on suspicion of two counts of felony sexual assault.

In February, a 56-year-old woman told police she'd been a client of Jakopchek's for eight months when one day he molested her and exposed himself. Jakopchek claimed to practice Chi Nei Tsang " a touch therapy that is designed to release negative energy.

After a story ran Tuesday in the Nevada Appeal, a second woman contacted authorities to report that in January, she'd also been assaulted by Jakopchek.

It is the Nevada Appeal's policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

The 44-year-old woman said in an interview Thursday that she met Jakopchek through friends at Comma Coffee. The woman said that on two occasions, she met with Jakopchek for a session in a side room at the Carson Street coffeehouse.

Both times, Jakopchek allegedly asked her to loosen her pants for the treatment.

"He claims so he can reach certain chakras or whatever," she said. "But on the third visit he crossed that line. Not only did he unzip my pants, this time he lost control. He told me that he was feeling incredible energy. That he's never felt it before. That he'd never gone this far before, but he was feeling the energy that he was supposed to do this, and he shoved his hand down there and ... started assaulting me."

The woman said when she jumped off the table, Jakopchek allegedly told her, "I want you to meditate on what just happened here."

She said she left the coffeehouse and did not see him again.

"I've seen women in the past end up where the system didn't seem to help them," she said about not reporting the alleged assault immediately. "I was cautious about what the ramifications would be if I come forward. If it was going to mess with my public life, but then that (first) woman reported the same thing and I knew I had to say something."

June Joplin, owner of Comma Coffee, said that Jakopchek was a regular customer in her shop and he, along with others, would rent out a small office there to work with clients. She said she was unaware of any allegations of assault in her business.

She was vehement that Jakopchek does not perform massage.

"He does energy work. To confuse that is hard on all massage therapists," she said.

Amanda Burton, general manager of the Chi Nei Tsang Institute in Oakland, said Jakopchek did take courses and was at one time certified to perform Chi Nei Tsang.

"We decertified him more than a year ago as a Chi Nei Tsang practitioner when we got reports of inappropriate behavior," Burton said.

When asked if any form of Chi Nei Tsang involves genital touching, Burton was aghast.

"No, this is not what we do! As a community I can't tell you how much we are all horrified," she said. "What Edmund is doing is just a weird twisted perversion of what we do. It's not even what we do. We are truly horrified."

Burton said that during treatment, patients expose their stomach and possibly unbutton the top of their pants.

"But nobody is going to put their hands down the pants. No responsible practitioner would ever unzip a person's clothes without making an announcement. His behavior is not typical. It's not even in the universe of anything that is Chi Nei Tsang."

- Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.ࢩ