PSYCHIATRIC SEX CRIMES EXPOSED IN FLORIDA

The January 28, 2005 Tampa Tribune reported the Florida Health Department’s failure to refer more than 100 cases of psychotherapist sexual activity with a patient to the State’s Attorney for prosecution. Florida law presumes that patients being treated for mental or emotional troubles are vulnerable and specifically forbids psychotherapists from engaging in sexual activity with them. Doing so is a felony, with a first offense punishable by up to five years in prison, and a second by up to 15 years. Another Florida law, passed in 1992, says that any allegation that might be criminal—such as those that might be discovered by agencies of the Health Department in a state administrative action—must be referred to prosecutors.

Common sense, decency and conscience require that when one suspects a crime has been committed that he/she report it to the appropriate law enforcement agency. For states such as Florida, who have laws requiring it, it is of course a gross oversight to have failed to do so, especially when so many other state licensing and regulatory agencies do it regularly, in the absence of laws requiring it.

A sampling of Florida cases that escaped criminal investigation and prosecution:

According to Health Department files, psychiatrist Jose Anibal Cruz flirted with a female patient upon her first visit. In subsequent meetings, he hugged her, then requested photos of her in a bathing suit or nude. Shortly, they began having an affair. Cruz managed to conceal the relationship for eight years, continuing it even when he had the woman hospitalized (which he did five times). Before seeing her on rounds, he would call ahead and ask her to be in the shower when he arrived. The state revoked his license.

Mental health counselor Marvin Kassed was accused administratively in 2000 of having a sexual relationship with a patient. Kassed took a plea deal under which he neither admitted nor denied the allegations but agreed to two years probation, $4,900 in fines and investigative fees, and a weekly review by a Health Department psychotherapist of his cases involving female patients. (Kassed was accused in a similar case six years earlier. He was fined $1,000 and ordered to attend an ethics course.)

Tampa family counselor Richard Bernstein was accused administratively in 1998 of using so-called family therapy sessions to engage the mother of a patient into a sexual relationship. Bernstein admitted the allegation. He was fined $1,000, was put on license probation for five years and was banned from treating female patients for one year.

Jacksonville psychologist William C. Devereux was charged with having a sexual relationship with a patient. On June 12, 2000 he signed an agreement with the licensing board in which he neither admitted nor denied the allegations. He was fined and his practice was restricted.

In 2000, Jacksonville psychiatrist Ernest C. Miller was accused of five counts of misconduct, including a sexual relationship with a female patient. He signed an agreement with the licensing board in which he neither admitted nor denied the charges. He received a fine and reprimand.