A massage therapist has been given home detention after filming clients. Photo / Toa Heftiba
Victims of an Ōpōtiki massage therapist convicted of secretly filming his clients fear the unregulated nature of the industry could see him continuing to work as a masseuse.
David Alan Plodek was sentenced to four and a half months’ home detention when he appeared in the Ōpōtiki District Court on January 26, having earlier pleaded guilty to six charges of producing an intimate visual recording.
The charges came after the 44-year-old was caught filming female clients during their massage sessions between December 2021 and May 2022.
Plodek was also ordered to pay $500 emotional harm reparation to each of his six victims.
A name suppression order was lifted, allowing the publication of his name.
The woman responsible for catching and exposing Plodek’s offending said her suspicions were raised after she noticed his phone placed on a shelf, facing into a room where she was about to get undressed.
She later returned to the clinic with a plan to catch him in the act.
“After beating myself up about what I had seen, and following a whole lot of anxiety around the matter, I returned to see if my suspicions were correct,” she said in a victim impact statement prepared for the court.
With her suspicions confirmed, she confronted Plodek, only to have him deflect the issue, telling her it was her fault she took offence to his phone placement.
“But once the police found what they have found on your devices, I felt content in my decision knowing you would be stopped – and I’m the one who has stopped you,” she told Plodek.
She considers herself a relatively emotionally stable person, but since catching Plodek, she said she had suffered uncontrollable panic attacks and found it difficult to trust new people.
Even going to the supermarket could trigger fear.
“I shouldn’t, as a 36-year-old woman, be fearful to buy food for my family for fear of running into my abuser.
“Every room I enter now, I scan for recording devices. I don’t know how I will cope when the time comes for me to be alone in a room with a male health practitioner, as is always necessary in an adult’s lifetime.”
In her statement, she told Plodek how she had gone from being in control of every aspect of her life to feeling as if she had none.
And how, at the time, she had just started having conversations with her young daughter about “consent”, teaching her that her body was her own, and the boundaries needed to control her safety, “never thinking that in a twist of fate, my own control and power was at that moment being taken away from me to satisfy some need you felt was yours”.
The woman worried the recordings could have been shared.
“Were the recordings for his personal pleasure? Or would he share them on the dark web?
“My mind boggled, and it took me to some pretty dark places.”
At the time of the offending, Plodek was an independent contractor working at an established clinic in Ōpōtiki.
Other than having worked for hospitals in the United States for a dozen years, the person who hired him told Ōpōtiki News not much information could be found on his background.
Two of his victims wanted to do restorative justice as part of the court process, which they said Plodek agreed to.
However, the vetting process before setting up the restorative justice meeting established there was no remorse and that approach was cancelled.
Plodek was charged with having produced an intimate visual recording under the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015.
The women consider the sentence he received to be “light” and fear it may become a precedent for other cases.
They also say there is nothing to stop him from doing the same thing again.
“Because massage is an unregulated industry, basically anyone can set up and start practising,” the woman who revealed the offending said.
“He has left our district, and once he completes his home detention, has no restrictions on working as a masseuse again.”
Her final words in her victim impact statement were: “The shame of this is a burden for you to carry, not mine or any of the other victims you are charged for.”
Anyone who considers they may have been subject to the same form of professional misconduct can contact the Nationwide Health and Disability Advocacy Service on 0800 555 050.
The service offers free, independent and confidential advice and support to help people resolve issues with health and disability services.
Advocates can inform people about their rights, answer questions and talk through options for making a complaint.
- Whakatāne Beacon