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VIRGINIA BEACH – from www.hamptonroads.com – One woman wrote in a criminal complaint in April that a man walloped her with a horse riding crop and pressed his knees to her back when she asked him to stop.

Four other women filed complaints against the same Beach businessman days later, some accusing him of periodic spankings over five months or more. One wrote that she had endured strikes with a leather strap in exchange for a birthday party for her daughter. Two claimed the man wouldn’t let them leave until they agreed to beatings that at times left welts and bruises on their backsides.

Later, police arrested 54-year-old Virginia Beach restaurateur Henry Allen Fitzsimmons [pictured] on a charge of sexual battery and multiple counts of assault and abduction. Three charges of object sexual penetration followed.

A judge is set to hear evidence at a preliminary hearing Thursday. At an April 19 bond hearing, prosecutor Paul Powers called Fitzsimmons a “predator” who gave so-called scholarships to women in financial predicaments with the caveat they be spanked if they broke rules.

Defense attorney Robert Byrum called the case a concoction by an opportunistic former employee and others. “There’s a whole backstory that’s different than what appears here,” he said.

Asked in court whether he denied the charges, Fitzsimmons said, “Absolutely.”

Powers handed Circuit Judge Leslie L. Lilley photos of bruise-streaked bottoms. “He claims he never spanked anyone,” Powers said. “Do those pictures look like nobody was ever spanked?”

“He set them up under what’s called this Spencer Scholarship Program” and disciplined them if they broke any of its guidelines, Powers said. “How are they disciplined? By spanking their bare bottoms.”

Fitzsimmons has since declined an interview request from the Virginia Beach Correctional Center, where he is being held without bail.

The “Spencer Plan” alluded to in court is on a website that promotes a plan of “carefully regulated corporal punishment” between domestic partners. The site describes spanking techniques, including with belts and straps. Sample contracts have blank lines for participants’ signatures.

The site claims the Spencer Plan was created by a homemaker in the 1930s who wanted a way to quickly settle misunderstandings between husband and wife. It says the plan “can also be very useful in the context of a relationship between a person and a disciplinarian, with whom they are not romantically involved.”

A person who signs a “Spencer Plan Agreement” permits spankings “whenever they feel such discipline would be helpful” and promises to “ask for spankings when I feel I need them,” the site says.

The website’s “Spencer Scholarship Program” requires the same agreement. Students must meet with their sponsors at least once a week “to ensure the student has the assistance they need to successfully complete their education and meet all program goals,” according to program details.

An email request for more information to the site was not returned.

Two companies that track website registration details – Network Solutions and Whois.Net – listed the same registrant’s name for the site: Allen Fitzsimmons.

In court last month, Judge Lilley asked the prosecutor, Powers, how many were “participating in this scholarship program that’s being investigated.” Powers replied there were five with the investigation continuing.

Fitzsimmons moved into a six-room beach house on Vanderbilt Avenue here in June, bought Envy Bar and Grill on Atlantic Avenue in February and signed an eight-year lease, according to testimony at his bond hearing.

His financial means made Fitzsimmons a target, said Byrum, the defense attorney.

One of Fitzsimmons’ accusers is a former employee suspected of stealing thousands of dollars from his restaurant, Byrum said at the bond hearing, although she has not been charged with a crime in Virginia Beach.

When Fitzsimmons fired her over the missing money, “she comes down and gets an assault warrant. So does her daughter. So do a number of her daughter’s friends,” Byrum said. Some women made the complaints a month or more after the incidents supposedly took place, he said.

In court, Fitzsimmons acknowledged being familiar with the Spencer Plan but said “nobody is forced on anything.”

A friend of Fitzsimmons, Danielle Hetrick, said in an interview that he was a kind and trusting man.

Hetrick said she lived with Fitzsimmons at the time of his arrest. They met online about a year ago and became friends; he recognized her passion for her work as a hair stylist and makeup artist and became a mentor, she said.

“Allen is the most kind, generous person I have ever met in my life. He’s too trusting. That’s the problem,” Hetrick said.

“He likes making other people happy,” she said, and he shared the money he made in business ventures with others.

Fitzsimmons bought people cars, offered them jobs and put them up in hotels until they got on their feet, Hetrick said.