MOUNT VERNON -- A state appellate court has upheld the criminal sexual assault conviction of a male masseuse accused of violating female clients.
The Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court affirmed the conviction Sept. 19, siding with a ruling in Madison County Associate Judge Neil Schroeder's court.
Justice Thomas M. Welch authored the appeals court ruling with Justices James R. Moore and John B. Barberis, Jr. concurring.
The court held in Ronnie Blom’s appeal that, “The defendant’s conviction for criminal sexual assault is affirmed where the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt the use or threat of force...The conviction is also affirmed where the defendant was not denied due process when the trial court allowed the testimony from other-acts witnesses. The conviction is lastly affirmed where the state’s misstatement of the law in closing argument was not plain error.”
Blom filed the appeal after he was convicted on two counts of criminal sexual assault. He was sentenced to eight years on each count to be served consecutively, followed by a mandatory supervised release that could range from three years to life.
The appeals court ruled the state was correct when proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Blom used force in his encounters with the victims. The justices agreed he was alone with each woman in a dark room that was also locked. The women thought his instructions to lie on the table was part of the massage, but things became dangerous and uncomfortable when Blom took off the sheet and made inappropriate advances physically, the ruling states.
One woman alleged she was laying naked on her back, “and frozen in fear,” according to the ruling. The court also held that no one could hear the victims yell, even if they tried, because of loud music. The appeals court held this was enough to there was force beyond a reasonable doubt.
For Bloom's issue with three other-acts witnesses taking the stand, the appeals court noted that eight witnesses were called to testify and three of those eight were other-acts witnesses. While Blom said this denied his constitutional right to a fair trial, considering his contact with two of the women was too different from his conduct with the woman who filed the report, the appeals court disagreed.
“All three were female massage clients that made appointments with the defendant; all three experienced inappropriate touching by the defendant during a massage; all of the incidents occurred between 2012 to 2015; and all of the touching constituted, at a minimum, the offense of battery,” the appeals court ruled. “Though we agree with the defendant that some of the testimony was prejudicial, we cannot say it was so overly prejudicial that its probative effect was outweighed by the prejudice or that the ruling of the trial court allowing [the other two women] to testify was an abuse of discretion.”
The appeals court also disagreed with Blom’s issue that the state’s misstatement of law in its closing argument was a plain error that took away his due process rights. It noted that the state took part in the type of plain error where the evidence is “closely balanced that they jury’s guilty verdict may have resulted from the error and the not the evidence."
This came after the state misused the definition of force in its closing argument when it said that sexual penetration is an act of force, the ruling stated. Still, the appeals court also noted that the state did use the proper definition initially, when it said force is related to a threat or a form of violence. Plus, the lower court did instruct the jury to use the proper definition, not the one that the state misused during closing arguments.
According to background in the ruling, Blom was taken into custody after getting too hands-on with female clients while he worked at MasageLuXe in Edwardsville. Police started looking at him after a woman, D.M., went to the Edwardsville Police Department to file a sexual assault complaint. She said Blom was her attacker. As the police department publicized the case with a news release and a post on its social media page, more women came forward and said they experienced the same type of misconduct by Blom, according to court records.
Multiple women, including one who was pregnant, came forward. Women alleged Blom would perform a massage and touch them in inappropriate areas from in between their legs to their breasts, despite many of their statements to him that he made them uncomfortable. Others said they were afraid to speak up because they did not want Blom to get even more aggressive.