Ravi Zacharias’ legacy received another blow after one of his past employees has publicly come forward with new allegations and corroboration against the late famed christian apologist.
The latest allegations center around Jivan Spa, a wellness center he co-owned between 2009 and 2015, located near RZIM headquarters in Alpharetta, Ga. As we have already reported, he regularly went there for massage therapy and while on the table he would touch the women without their consent, monkey about with his draping and robes in an effort to expose himself, masturbated in front of them, and asked for sexual favors and “physical release.”
As things stand, four women have come forward with accusations of sexual impropriety, four people have corroborated the accounts, and two others acted as witnesses, for a total of ten people that we know so far. Of these ten, we know the identities of five.
Whereas much of the reporting has been done based on unnamed sources whose identities and employment were verified, one of the corroborators to the allegations has come forward and revealed her identity.
Emily Belz of World Magazine has released an article detailing her conversation with the former manager of Jivan Spa, Anna Adesanya, who worked at the wellness center from 2009 until 2012 and who spoke on the record, describing how one of the employees, a massage therapist, came to her upset that Zacharias had asked for perverted services. They write:
Adesanya told me Zacharias would come in regularly, maybe once a month. She remembered an incident around 2009 in which a massage therapist came to her and said she was uncomfortable treating Zacharias anymore because he had asked her for ‘more than a massage.’
Adesanya, who was unfamiliar with Zacharias’ apologetics ministry, said she took the information to Zacharias’ spa business partner, Anurag Sharma, and asked that they talk to Zacharias. She said the two met him at his office at RZIM, where Zacharias showed them his back X-rays as a way of explaining his need for therapy. Zacharias had spoken publicly about his chronic back problems from an injury decades earlier.
‘He did not admit it—he became defensive,’ said Adesanya. ‘He said, “Who is this girl, what is she trying to do to me?'”
After the meeting, Adesanya said, Sharma fired the therapist who had complained. Zacharias continued coming for regular spa appointments. (Sharma did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)
Adesanya said no other therapists complained to her about Zacharias during her tenure. But she said Zacharias only went to certain therapists and often brought his own massage therapist, an Indian woman, and they would occupy one of the rooms for therapy sessions. ‘I would often have to wonder, because they would be in that room for hours. At most you’re going to have a therapy session that’s going to last an hour and half, maybe two hours tops,’ Adesanya said. ‘It would exceed two hours, if not three. … But it was never anything that was spoken of.’
While RZIM initially told Protestia when we brought these allegations forward weeks ago that they were “virtually impossible to investigate,” they have since changed their tune and are now launching a full investigation.
