A former television producer and writer who worked for the popular "El Gordo y La Flaca" show is facing sexual battery charges after authorities said he used his connection with the show to prey on women.
Enrique Albis-Masot, 53, has been charged with one count each of sexual battery by force and false imprisonment, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office said Friday.
The State Attorney's Office said Albis-Masot was already facing two counts of sexual battery as well as charges of false imprisonment, robbery by sudden snatching and battery from incidents originally investigated by the Doral Police Department.
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It's alleged that Albis-Masot would tell women that he'd audition them for a part on the popular Spanish-language show, but that they had to see him in person.
But the "auditions" were never authorized by the network or anyone at the television studio, prosecutors said.
The latest charges stem from an incident where Albis-Masot allegedly told an actress that he had known in Cuba and who was looking for work that he was developing a character for the show and offered her an opportunity to audition at his office for a script called “Bellita la Microfonsita," prosecutors said.
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After several meetings, Albis-Masot asked the victim to wear a tight-fitting wetsuit as a part of the audition.
At some point during this "audition" a struggle ensued and Albis-Masot allegedly pushed the victim onto a sofa and pulled her hair while forcibly attempting to remove the wetsuit she was wearing as she was struggling to get away, prosecutors said.
Albis-Masot managed to pull the wetsuit down to the victim’s knees leaving her almost naked, before the alleged sexual battery occurred, prosecutors said.
Network management told investigators that Albis-Masot did not have authorization to conduct casting for an unknown script called “Bellita la Microfonsita," and police also learned that Albis-Masot had been explicitly told one year earlier that he was prohibited from hiring talent for the television show, prosecutors said.
"Every sexual assault is a degradation of the victim," Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. "That is what so often makes these victims so fragile. But to think that a media producer would use his position to gain sexual access to women seeking a television job seems like a sad throw-back to scandals that I hoped we were already past thanks to the effort of the 'Me Too' movement."
Albis-Masot was booked into jail where he remained held on $15,000 bond Friday, records showed. Attorney information wasn't available.
"Today, several victims of unspeakable crimes are one step closer to justice. The long road to healing has begun for these brave women and our community is safer with the arrest of Mr. Albis-Masot. Today is a great day," United States Marshal Gadyaces Serralta, whose office was part of the investigation, said in a statement.
