Douglas County adds four sex-crime charges against Baldwin massage therapist

Douglas County prosecutors added four more sex-crime charges against Baldwin massage therapist Aaron Paul Borger this week, raising the case to 11 criminal counts and widening it from a single arrest into a broader investigation tied to a local wellness business.

Borger, 44, of Hartford in Lyon County, now faces seven felony counts and four misdemeanors. The felony charges include two rape counts and five counts of aggravated sexual battery, while the misdemeanors are sexual battery allegations. The new filing also names three additional alleged victims, bringing the total number identified in the case to eight, with birth years ranging from 1969 to 2008.

Baldwin police arrested Borger on April 8 on suspicion of three sex crimes after a complaint from the previous week during a massage appointment. Investigators say the case grew from that report, and prosecutors say the alleged offenses occurred between 2024 and this month while Borger was providing massage services at Om Grown Yoga & Wellness Collective in Baldwin City. The business operates in a historic building at 816 High St. and had several other massage therapists working there. Borger worked there in a contractual capacity rather than as a regular employee.

The allegations have landed hard in Baldwin City, a Douglas County community of 4,826 people in the 2020 census, where a case involving a trusted wellness setting carries outsized weight. Om Grown’s public history shows it began operating in the city by June 2019 and later moved into the High Street building. Business owners cooperated from the start, and prosecutors have urged anyone who may have had inappropriate or non-consensual contact with Borger, in Baldwin City or elsewhere, to contact law enforcement.

Kansas law defines sexual battery as nonconsensual touching of a person age 16 or older with intent to arouse or satisfy sexual desire. Aggravated sexual battery covers sexual battery committed under circumstances including force or fear, unconsciousness or physical powerlessness, or an inability to consent because of mental deficiency, disease, alcohol, narcotics or another substance.

Douglas County also has a victim-witness services program designed to provide a more trauma-informed response for victims and witnesses moving through the criminal justice system. The Kansas Attorney General’s Office also administers Safe at Home, an address-confidentiality program for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and human trafficking, as the case continues to unfold.