Annapolis, MD — It is a criminal offense in 16 states for a counselor to have sex with a client, even if that sex is consensual. Not so in Maryland. The issue of consensual sex between a counselor and a client has played a key role in the sensational case involving Mechanicsville counselor Karl Honkala and his client Blanche Laungayan.
Although it is not a criminal offense, consensual sex between a client and counselor is prohibited by Maryland regulations governing counselors. The regulations say: “A counselor may not engage in either consensual or forced sexual behavior with a client.” Those regulations are enforced by the State Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists. The board may suspend or revoke the counselor’s license with findings of violation of the regulations.
The state board suspended Honkala’s license to practice June 9, 2014 after allegations by Laungayan, who was seeing him for drug abuse counseling while she was part of the Adult Drug Court program in St. Mary’s County. It is believed that an appeal hearing has been held but the outcome has not been reported.
The suspension issued by the state board included an investigation and interviews with Honkala and Laungayan and others. She testified in an interview that in November of 2013 she was unable to regularly pay her session fee and was told by Honkala: “You do me a favor. I’ll do you a favor.” When she asked what he meant, he allegedly responded, “I think you know what I mean” and looked down at his pants.
According to Laungayan, she performed oral sex on Honkala during approximately 10 to 12 sessions. She said that Honkala discussed personal issues with her instead of discussing her recovery, bought a boat from her father and asked that she move in with him. She expressed concern about the conduct to her parole agent.
In an interview with Honkala, the investigators were told by him that “he engaged in sexual intercourse with Laungayan on his desk in his office. Additionally, he admitted to having had ‘sexual acts’ with her five or six times in his office in the waiting area,” according to the order.
Honkala told the investigator that Laungayan initiated the sexual acts by exposing her bra and breasts to show him a tattoo on her left breast.” He called her “sexually aggressive” and explained his actions by saying he was “weak.”
Subsequent to Honkala’s license suspension, the Maryland State Police launched a criminal investigation. State Police investigator Trooper Evan Krenik met with Laungayan and her attorneys on two occasions, at which time she essentially repeated what she had told the state board investigators.
Trooper Krenik, in a report of the investigation supplied to The Bay Net by Honkala, said he was unable to find any text or phone messages between Honkala and Laungayan, as she had allegedly asserted.
According to Krenik’s reports: “Investigators asked Laungayan if she felt comfortable wearing a hidden wire (recording device) to meet with Honkala in an attempt to get him to talk to her about the inappropriate behavior.” She agreed and a sting operation was set up for the parking lot of Leonardtown Middle School.
The operation appeared to go awry when Laungayan apparently inadvertently texted another person named Karl and that person showed up to get the sex she had promised in her text. Honkala described the operation in a letter to The Bay Net as “a botched wire sting for sex.”
The report then says that Laungayan was interviewed again by Detective Sgt. Jones and Trooper Jason Ewig, who reported, “During our second interview with Laungayan she stated she had been having consensual sex relations with Karl Honkala and she was never forced into any type of sexual act.” Based on that the case was closed and no crime was charged against Honkala.
Laungayan received a suspended sentence of almost four years for burglary and drug possession in February 2013 under the condition that she complete the Adult Drug Court program and obey all laws. While she was under probation and while she was still seeing Honkala she was charged and later convicted of shoplifting from two Walmart stores on the Eastern Shore
On March 13 St. Mary’s County Circuit Court Judge Michael Stamm re-imposed the suspended jail term for violation of probation. At that hearing, Laungayan’s attorney Kevin McDevitt announced that he was being sued by Honkala.
Honkala filed the civil suit Feb. 4 that asks for a judgement against McDevitt of $1 million and punitive damages of $2 million. The suit alleges that McDevitt “maliciously, and in reckless disregard for the truth, falsely accused the plaintiff of unchaste relations with Laungayan, of illegal service contracts and other criminal and immoral acts.”
The issue of whether consensual sex between a counselor and client should be criminal behavior has been aired in Annapolis for the past few years and again this year. A bill, known as “Lynette’s Law,” would make even consensual sex between a client and a counselor or therapist a third-degree sex offense.
Lynette is really Heather Lynette Sinclair, an Anne Arundel County woman who allegedly was sexually abused by her counselor while she was in therapy for being a victim of sex trafficking. The counselor turned in his license and was also never criminally charged. Sinclair has made it her mission to get the law passed.
The bill has been controversial in the legislature and was given an unfavorable report this year by both the House and Senate committees that heard the bill. As is the case in many bills heard by the legislature some of the potential consequences of the measure have been called into question.
The bill also is opposed by the Maryland Psychological Association. At the hearing on SB 617 before the Senate Judicial Proceeding Committee, Bill Pitcher of the association said, “It sets all kinds of unintended things in motion. The bill is redundant in that you are criminalizing what is already prohibited.”
But the bill’s sponsor, Harford and Cecil County Senator Wayne Norman [R – 35th District] called it “a very easy bill.” He said, “It says a therapist and counselor shouldn’t have sex with his patient. It’s already proscribed in regulations. If you are a therapist and counselor, don’t have sex with your patient. That’s because these folks who are going to counselors, psychiatrists and therapists they are what I consider to be of tender sensibilities. I think it would be morally wrong for a counselor or therapist to prey upon such a person, but they do, and even though it is proscribed by regulation, they do.”
Sinclair testified, “I believe it’s a common sense bill. When someone goes into therapy they are in a very vulnerable position.”
The notion of someone not being able to truly give consent is not new in state law. An adult cannot have consensual sex with a minor. The key, say professionals who deal with sexual abuse every day, is the “emotional dependency” in an otherwise consensual sexual relationship.
In testimony on the Senate Bill, Executive Director and Counsel of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Abuse (MCASA) Lisae Jordan urged some type of bill language that clarified that issue. She gave the committee the following example of language: “A condition of the patient brought about by the nature of the patient’s own emotional condition or the nature of the treatment provided by a professional therapist or counselor which is characterized by significant impairment of the patient’s ability to withhold consent to a sexual act, sexual contact, or vaginal intercourse with the professional therapist or counselor and which the professional therapist or counselor knows or has reason to know exists.”
Jordan is frustrated by the inability to get a bill passed. As she said in her testimony: “Sexual abuse of patients by therapists causes significant harm to patients and to the public’s trust in health care professionals. Maryland’s public policy should include criminal sanctions for the most serious of these cases.”
Walden-Sierra Executive Director Dr. Kathleen O’Brien is equally frustrated at the inability of the Maryland General Assembly to address the problem. O’Brien’s agency provided counseling for Laungayan after she was arrested and jailed for the shoplifting charge and the alleged violation of probation.
At the March 13 hearing in which Laungayan was sentenced to the almost four years of back-up time, Walden Clinical Manager Kori Summers testified, “As of late she has done nothing but positive things,” Summers said of her progress. Summers said Laungayan suffers from bipolar disorder and is taking medication for it.
Summers said that part of Laungayan’s treatment had been trauma therapy for a traumatic event. When asked by McDevitt to explain, Summers said, “Blanche told me she had been sexually assaulted by her counselor.” When asked to identify that counselor at first Summers said she couldn’t remember the name, but then a few minutes later she told Judge Stamm the name popped into her head. “It was Karl Honkala,” she said.
Summers said Walden and the detention center have a grant for treatment for women who are incarcerated. She said her agency has an inpatient treatment facility in Charlotte Hall that would be ideal for Laungayan. “I believe Blanche is working really hard in the program now, Summers said.
Instead of giving Laungayan local time so she could continue with the Walden counseling, the judge sentenced her to the Division of Corrections, although he asked that she be sent to Patuxent Institute, which has counseling services.
Jordan said that Dr. O’Brien has offered to work with her to come up with some acceptable language so that a bill on counselor/client sex can pass the Maryland General Assembly next year.
For more information go to the Lynette’s Law website: www.lynetteslaw4Maryland.com
Contact Dick Myers at news@thebaynet.com
To view a video of Heather Lynette Sinclair’s experience, go to: