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A Florida rehab social worker had sex with a woman he knew had been abused, state says

Miami Herald - 6/16/2022

Sex with a rehabilitation center patient he knew had been a sex abuse victim cost a Davie licensed clinical social worker his job and his license.

The final order from the state’s Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling revoking Juan Gomez’s license was posted June 8. Gomez’s online Florida Department of Health profile says he’d been licensed since Oct. 23, 2019.

Exactly one year before Gomez’s license was revoked, June 8, 2021, he had his first therapy sessions with a woman. She was at Boca Raton’s Sunlight Recovery Center to begin addiction recovery treatment. Over the next 20 days, the administrative complaint says, the 45-year-old woman told Gomez about “her personal struggles and history of sexual abuse.”

Before she left Sunlight on June 28, Gomez got her phone number. He began reaching out to her on July 4 and agreed to meet her at her office on July 9 after she wanted his advice on her recovery.

Gomez didn’t show up at her office, but did show up at her home that night.

Gomez and the woman “began a romantic relationship and engaged in sexual intercourse,” the administrative complaint said.

The woman told Sunlight about the relationship on July 26. Gomez admitted it to Sunlight the next day and was fired.

“After being terminated on July 27, 2021, [Gomez] continued to go to [the woman’s] home and communicate via test messages and phone calls,” the complaint said. Gomez “used his position as a clinical social worker and his personal knowledge of [her] personal history to prey upon [her] during a particularly vulnerable time.”

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