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Board votes to revoke beautician's license By DANI DODGE After he was convicted in criminal court of fondling a teenager and fined in civil court for battery against three women, the state is recommending that a Medford beauty salon owner's license be revoked. Following an April hearing, the state's Board of Cosmetology said David Lee Creager, co-owner of About Change ... Your Hair & Face Place, should be barred from doing hair, nails or facials. "Mr. Creager has been subjecting his employees and/or customers to unwanted sexual and physical conduct since at least 1991," the hearings officer's report states. "Mr. Creager used his certificate and his facility to obtain victims for his unwanted sexual advances. "The reprehensibility and criminality of Mr. Creager's acts warrant a certificate revocation." Bob Gruchalla, senior enforcement officer, said this is the first time in his nine years on the cosmetology board that a revocation has been recommended based on sexual misconduct. Creager, who has been in the beauty business 35 years, said he has not yet decided whether he will appeal. He did not attend the April hearing. Creager's legal troubles began in 1994 when five employees of Visual Changes, a now-defunct salon formerly owned and operated by Creager, sued him for sexual harassment. The women said Creager subjected them to unwelcome kissing, hugging and groping, as well as demeaning statements and dirty jokes. The jury rejected most of the plaintiffs' legal claims, including sexual harassment and wrongful discharge, but it ruled for three of them on the charge of battery. Each of them was awarded $500 in economic damages and $10,000 in punitive damages. The fourth employee dropped out of the case midtrial and the trial judge dismissed claims made by the fifth plaintiff. There continue to be court hearings regarding the fourth and fifth employees: Creager says they filed a frivolous lawsuit and an appeals court reinstated a breach-of-contract claim filed by one of the women. In an unrelated matter, Creager pleaded no contest in July 2000 to one misdemeanor charge of sexual harassment stemming from allegations he groped two teenage customers. Creager was subsequently placed on two years of supervised probation and ordered to perform 24 hours of community service. In the board's finding of fact, each of the five cases of abuse is discussed and each has a similar scenario. The girls and women said Creager offered them a facial, told them to put on a tube top, and then during the facial touched their breasts. During the 21/2-hour April hearing, some of the testimony came from victims and some from police officers. One of those who testified was Tami Sprague, a former employee of Creager's who now has her own shop. She was one of the women who successfully sued Creager, although she said he hasn't yet paid her a dime. "This is my profession and I hold it in high regard and I don't appreciate the fact that there is a practitioner out there that is abusing his license to touch and violate women," Sprague said. "I'm going to feel tons better when his license is revoked. That's what I've prayed for all this time. "I know the devastating effect his behavior has had on myself and others and especially what happened to those young girls. If I hadn't gotten involved in getting his license revoked, I couldn't have lived with myself." But Creager said he believes he should be able to keep his license. He called revocation "overkill." "I've got a year of probation left yet," he said. "That's pretty much punishment enough to extract. "I've been years in this business with an extensive clientele that's been pleased as they can be with my work." Creager will have a few weeks to turn in written exceptions to the findings of fact from the hearing, Gruchalla said. Then a final order of revocation could be issued that would mean Creager could no longer practice. He will have 60 days after the final order is issued to appeal it. An appeal would put the final order on hold until the appeal is resolved. "Until the final order is issued he could be doing a facial as we speak," said Gruchalla, the cosmetology board's senior enforcement officer. "But once the final order has been issued, that's it. "He did a lot of damage and deserves whatever punishment he gets." Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.