A former member of the Latin pop group Menudo claims a massage-chair mishap at a Sharper Image store had him seeing double.
“Contrary to its name, defendant Sharper Image has caused blurred and double vision” for Ruben Gomez, his $12 million lawsuit charges.
“This is about economic loss. His whole career was pushed back because of this injury,” said his lawyer, Pam Liapakis.
The freak accident happened at the popular chain’s West 50th Street store in 1998, where an employee picked Gomez as a “test subject in the demonstration of a Shiatsu-type massager” based on his “good looks, winning personality and celebrity status,” the suit says.
While Gomez was in the vibrating chair, a number of boxes that were stored on a shelf above him “violently tumbled downwards,” hitting him “on and about his head,” the suit says.
“He was unconscious for a time and kind of stunned,” Liapakis said.
The head injuries affected the 26-year-old Gomez for “at least a year,” and came just as he was set to launch his solo singing career, she added.
The suit charges the electronic-gadget store with “negligence and carelessness.”
The Sharper Image declined to comment. Gomez was 12 years old when he became the first New York native to join the ever-evolving teen pop group Menudo in 1987, and he sang alongside heartthrob Ricky Martin for a time.
Gomez was booted from the group in 1990, after Miami Customs agents busted him carrying a small amount of marijuana in the crotch of his pants.