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Social worker accused of having sex with client surrenders her license
['Clark Kauffman', 'More From Author', '- March']
Date: 2022-03-17 00:00:00
An Iowa social worker accused of having a sexual relationship with a client has agreed to surrender her license to the state.
Last year, the Iowa Board of Social Work board charged Kristal Lake of Kimballton with making suggestive, lewd, lascivious or improper remarks to a client, or making advances toward a client. The board alleged Lake sent sexually explicit text messages, photos and videos to a client.
As part of the final disposition of the case, Lake has agreed to surrender her license. Under the terms of the agreement with the board, she must wait a minimum of one year before seeking reinstatement and then must demonstrate it is in the public interest for the license to be reinstated.
Court records indicate that Lake is currently a defendant in a civil lawsuit brought by a former client identified in court records only as John Doe. Doe alleges that in 2020, while Lake was acting as his addiction counselor at Manning Family Recovery Center, Lake initiated “a personal relationship of a sexually predatory nature” with him.
The lawsuit alleges Lake made comments such as, “I don’t know how I’m going to keep myself together with you in my office,” and that the two entered into a short-lived sexual relationship, with Lake sending him sexual images, videos, and text messages.
In addition to Lake, defendants in the case include Catholic Health Initiatives; the recovery center; Manning Regional Healthcare Center; MercyOne; and a counselor, Damon Bromley, who reportedly knew of the alleged relationship between Doe and Lake.
The defendants have denied any wrongdoing. A trial is scheduled for July 2023.
More social work licensure action
The Iowa Board of Social Work’s actions in separate cases included:
— Issuing a warning to Lindsay Neth of Brandon, South Dakota, for having faced disciplinary action in another state.
In June of last year, Neth was disciplined by the South Dakota Board of Social Work Examiners for “engaging in a dual relationship with a client and using technology for personal purposes with a client.”
The available public documents do not explain or elaborate on the allegations. Neff declined to comment on the allegations when contacted Wednesday by the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Pursuant to an agreement with the South Dakota board, Neth must undergo one year of work supervision and complete 45 additional hours of continuing education in professional ethics.
— Reinstating, free and clear of any restrictions, the license of Nitausha Williams of North Sioux City, South Dakota. Last year, the board issued a warning to Williams for intentionally forging a supervisor’s signature on documents related to her work supervision and then misrepresenting the number of educational hours she had completed toward licensure.
The board also found that her subsequent testimony to the panel, in which she claimed innocence, was “not credible” given a previous, contradictory statement made to a board investigator.
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