Plea change set for therapist accused of sex with teen patient

A Coeur d’Alene counselor who denied having sex with a vulnerable adult will change his plea at a hearing next week.

Attorneys for Jeffrey Worley, 44, who pleaded not guilty to rape and sexual abuse of a vulnerable adult last year, asked the court for a change of plea hearing, which has been set for July 15 in Coeur d’Alene.

Worley was a therapist three years ago when he allegedly engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old who was being counseled following a suicide attempt.

The consensual relationship lasted more than a year in which Worley and the teen engaged in sex at Worley’s Ironwood Drive office, according to police reports.

Worley’s attorneys wanted the charges against their client dismissed, arguing the teenager was not vulnerable in the normal sense of the word, because she turned 18 during the time of the affair, graduated high school with her class, moved into an apartment, drove a car and cared for herself.

Defense attorneys Robyn L. McPherson and Jason G. Johnson said the state had failed to provide evidence that the victim’s intellectual abilities were affected by a low IQ.

“To the contrary, the state’s evidence indicates that (the victim) understood she was engaging in a consensual relationship,” the attorneys wrote in a motion that was denied by First District Court Judge Scott Wayman.

“If every person who suffered from a mental disease or defect qualified as a vulnerable adult millions of Americans would be committing a felony by engaging in consensual sexual relationships,” McPherson and Johnson wrote. “There is absolutely no evidence that (the victim’s) physical or mental ailments prevented her from self protection.”

After denying the motion to dismiss the case, Wayman vacated a jury trial set for last month and allowed defense attorneys more time to reach an agreement with prosecutors through mediation.

Monday’s change of plea hearing will be at 11:30 a.m. downtown in the old federal courthouse.