Kootenai Behavioral Health therapist accused of sexual abuse and exploitation of client

A Kootenai Behavioral Health therapist is under investigation on allegations of repeated sexual encounters with a teenage client.

Jeffrey Worley has been charged with rape, sexual abuse and exploitation of a vulnerable adult. The alleged victim, who suffers from multiple mental health issues, told Coeur d’Alene police that Worley first initiated sex with her in October 2016, and that over the following seven months, the two had sex “hundreds of times,” according to court documents.

The woman told police that she began going to the Kootenai Behavioral Health for counseling in 2016, and that Worley was assigned as her counselor. The sessions, which occurred three to five times a week, proceeded normally until about March 2016, she said, when Worley began to incorporate episodes of lying next to each other on the floor in the dark and cuddling. Eventually, the practice became regular at the sessions, the woman said.

Around this time, Worley stopped charging the client for their sessions, she told police.

The sessions became increasingly less formal, with the woman sometimes bringing alcohol and both of them drinking, she said. At one point the woman confronted Worley about his wife, after which she became distressed and slammed her head against a wall. Worley stopped her but appeared to ignore the encounter afterward, she said.

The woman said Worley professed his love to her in October, and the two began to have a sexual relationship. She was unable to say whether she was 17 or 18 at the time.

The woman ended the sexual relationship in May, and terminated the counseling sessions in June. Worley, however, continued to contact her via text and social media, and she later found that he had moved into an apartment across the hall from her own.

She told police she decided to report his actions because she didn’t want other young women to be similarly victimized.

Following their interview with the woman, detectives located Worley and transported him to the Coeur d’Alene Police Department for questioning. He was interviewed and arrested.