Owner of Heavenly Hands Massage in Parma accused of promoting prostitution - cleveland.com

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 43-year-old Brunswick woman is accused of running a brothel out of a Parma massage parlor named Heavenly Hands Massage.

Investigators shuttered the West Pleasant Valley Road parlor this month and filed felony promoting prostitution charges against Melanie Header.

Header is scheduled for an April 3 arraignment in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. She is free on a personal bond.

Parma police in December and January conducted an investigation into the parlor, which sits in a strip of businesses near Broadview Road that includes an Urgent Care. The parlor advertised its services on backpage.com, a website that has been publicly trying to distance itself from the sex trade.

Investigators said that Header's employees at the parlor were offering sexual favors to clients for money, Parma police said.

Parma police raided the parlor in February. The parlor is now shuttered, prosecutors say.

Header, reached by phone on Friday, told cleveland.com that her business was legitimate and employed certified massage therapists. The charge, she said, stems from one employee soliciting an undercover police officer.

"I ran a day spa," she said. "One of my employees did something dishonest, and I'm taking the blame for it. That's not what my business is about."

It's unclear if any other employees may face prosecution.

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