The founder and chief fitness strategist of an Upper West Side boutique gym was arrested Tuesday morning for allegedly sexually abusing a patron at the facility, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Ray Wallace, 40, the owner of FIT RxN on West End Avenue, was taken into custody by the investigators with the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit in Manhattan on charges of sex abuse and forcible touching, sources said.
Wallace allegedly grabbed and squeezed a 30-year-old woman’s buttocks and kissed her without permission inside the gym on Oct. 4, 2017, according to sources.
Two women previously took to Yelp and left reviews detailing allegations against Wallace, who is better known by clients as “Mr. Ray.”
One of those women reported Wallace to the NYPD.
According to the victim’s Yelp review, she first went to the gym – which offers boxing and TRX training – in September of last year for personal training and bought 10 sessions with Wallace.
She trained with Wallace four times at the gym located near West 61st Street, including once on Oct. 4.
“I felt a great, motivational vibe from the outset, and I was impressed by the studio’s cleanliness and equipment. The assessments and workouts were efficient. Then things took a turn, with Mr. Ray making comments like, ‘Your butt is amazing. I’m going to make it amazinger. Booty by Ray,’” the woman wrote in the lengthy post in which she rated the gym with one star.
The woman continued: “But then it escalated to butt grabbing, jiggling, smacking. If you want to remind me to activate my glutes during a move, use words. Don’t lift up my shirt and tuck it into my high waist pants to have more access to it. I just kept stressing that I’m seeing someone, another fitness professional, and not talking about myself much even in response to questions. I was there to workout, not be flirted with.”
The victim wrote that then on Oct. 4, she “felt very uncomfortable with something super inappropriate.”
“Ray said he needed some more ‘before’ photos of me, so he took me to the back office against the plain wall and door. I turned around, heard, ‘This is definitely going to be my favorite photo ever,’ and felt a bite on my right butt cheek — followed by a kiss,” the woman wrote.
She added: “I was scared frozen. I did flinch and move away, and I strategized how to exit but knew I was alone in the building with him.”
“I decided to just be nice and leave, awkwardly. ‘You’re leaving me already? If you have time, I could give you a massage.’ Noo!!! He even asked for a hug. I said I was tired and really needed to go home,” the woman said.
The victim went on to say that she emailed Wallace a message written by her boyfriend, saying that he made her “uncomfortable” and that she wanted a refund for her six remaining sessions.
Wallace, according to the post, proceeded to repeatedly call the woman “to sort this out.”
“[B]ut I didn’t answer. I texted, ‘nothing to sort out, just want my money back’. I still have the texts where he apologized ‘for any miscommunication’ and that it wasn’t his intent. I got the money back a few business days later. Miscommunication?! He knows he was being a creep. Women, beware,” she wrote.
Another Yelp reviewer also accused Wallace of inappropriately touching her in a post.
“I’ve been going to Fit RnX for the last year and I honestly was too scared to say anything,” that commenter wrote on Jan. 15. “I thought it was just me but Mr. Ray makes me feel so uncomfortable. He purposefully touches me in ways that aren’t obvious to others in the class but are so inappropriate. I avoid his classes now – ladies beware!”
Wallace, a resident of Linden, New Jersey, runs the 6-year-old FIT RxN – formerly called Pedal NYC – with his wife, Tara. The gym also has a location in Hoboken.
The woman who reported Wallace to cops told The Post that she hopes other women will speak out against Wallace.
“Whenever anyone complained about him they [Wallace and his wife] both just made it go away,” she said.
Additional reporting by Stephanie Pagones