School leader arrested for alleged unwanted foot massage - MassLive.com

[massage]

A school administrator was arrested Monday and placed on paid leave after allegedly giving an unwanted foot massage to someone at a gym in another town.

Olayinka Alege, 40, is the network superintendent of secondary schools in Providence and oversees the city’s middle and high schools. He was arrested and charged with simple assault for allegedly massaging someone’s foot without their consent at a gym in Warwick, WJAR reported.

Court records do not list an attorney for Alege. An email sent to him on Wednesday was not immediately returned.

The alleged interaction happened April 20 at Edge Fitness, which is outside Alege’s school district.

A spokesperson for the Providence school district said Alege was placed on paid leave.

“As a district, we hold our staff, school leaders and administrators to the highest standards and take any allegation extremely seriously,” Audrey Lucas said in a statement on Tuesday.

The person at the gym told Warwick police that Alege asked about their sneakers and then took off their sock and massaged their foot. That person said they called their parents after the encounter, according to police. Officers redacted identifying information about the person.

One of the parents spoke with the gym management, the newspaper reported.

Police identified Alege because he swiped his gym card upon leaving, the newspaper reported. Police later interviewed Alege, though police records show his answers to questions about the interaction at the gym were vague.