Now this is some excellent investigative reporting. Hats off to the reporters! Now this probably won’t come as a shock to those of us advocating safety regulations in 12 step meetings. I wonder what the state of California has to say about the fact that sexual predators are allowed to be AA sponsors and NA sponsors for people of all ages, including teens?
Many 12 steppers go on to become addiction counselors to make a living, or set up halfway houses to make a buck and exploit the system and the addicts. This is just outrageous that sex offenders can be addiction counselors or AA Sponsors to teens. Let’s roll up our sleeves and start raising more hell about these loopholes and apathy that allow these insane practices to continue! Stop sexual abuse by sexual psychopaths turned counselors and sex predators turned sponsors!
Hole in California law allows sex offenders to become addiction counselors
May 13, 2013
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Christina Jewett
Health and Welfare Reporter
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Will Evans
Money and Politics Reporter
“Sexual psychopath.” That was the diagnosis a court-ordered psychiatrist gave Donald Robert Hoffman after he was convicted of molesting a 13-year-old boy in 1965. Hoffman, the psychiatrist determined, was a danger to others.
But that history didn’t stop Hoffman from becoming a state-registered drug and alcohol counselor decades later, even though he had to register as a sex offender once he was released from prison in 1979.
Hoffman lost his counselor status only after three residents of the San Francisco rehab center where he worked told investigators in 2008 that Hoffman had plied them with drugs and alcohol and made aggressive sexual advances. Hoffman was fired, but was never charged over those allegations. He died two years later at 67. Continue reading
