More allegations of sexual abuse emerge against ex-counselor ...Middle East

Another client of former licensed professional counselor Wade Wicht is accusing him of sexual abuse, joining two other women who have already filed criminal complaints with Hattiesburg police. 

“Wade saved my life,” she said, “but he also betrayed me.”

Wicht’s lawyer, Michael Reed of Hattiesburg, did not respond to requests for responses regarding the women’s accusations. The Hattiesburg police continue to investigate the complaints and have declined to comment.

Police are also investigating a third criminal complaint filed against Wicht. The Mississippi Child Protective Services has previously investigated the matter.

“My understanding is the allegations reported to CPS were unsubstantiated,” Reed said. “Of course, Mr. Wicht wholeheartedly denies the allegations.”

‘Real love doesn’t do that’

In a sworn statement, a woman, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said Wicht sexually abused her during the time he counseled her.

The young woman went to him in 2016 because she was still reeling from a 28-year-old man sexually abusing her when she was 8. “I was the kid who took a shower with my underwear on,” she said.

Wicht’s counseling helped her immensely, but some of the things he did also disturbed her, she said. He once asked if she looked at child porn and when she angrily replied no, she said he asked, “Why are you reacting like that?”

While she was still counseling with Wicht, she called him drunk, she said. “I’m out in the woods. I’m bawling. I’m mad at God.”

He drove to where she was, took her home and insisted she head to the bathroom, she said, but when she did go, he refused to leave the bathroom while she urinated.

He encouraged her to sleep on her parents’ couch, rather than her bedroom, and after she closed her eyes to sleep, she said she felt his hand go down into her jogging pants and underneath her panties.

When she objected, she said he pulled his hand back out and said, “Oh, it’s OK. It’s OK.”

Earlier this year, she said she confronted Wicht about that night, and he said nothing in response.

She had confronted him before, she said, accusing him of being a sex addict. “Your mind is sick, and your heart is seared,” she quoted herself as saying. “You can’t work multiple women over at the same time and call it love. Real love doesn’t do that. You have confused love with something else.”

In response, he wept and spoke of being truly sorry and changed by God, she said.

She credited God, journaling, counseling from others, expressing her feelings through art and distance from Wicht with helping her heal. “There would have been no healing if God hadn’t given me the courage to go to counseling,” she said. “My faith is central to who I am.”

Unlike the other women, she has no plans to file a criminal complaint against Wicht because she doesn’t want to go through the same agony she did in testifying against her 28-year-old abuser. She said Wicht’s sexual abuse of her could only be prosecuted as a misdemeanor because Mississippi law requires penetration in order to be classified as a felony.

Her past made her an easy target

Jenny Green is going public with what she said Wicht did to her during counseling sessions.

“He’s a free man, and nothing has happened to him,” said Green, who has filed a criminal complaint with Hattiesburg police. “I want to do all I can to help make sure he can’t do anything like that again.”

Her past made her an easy target, she said, because she had been sexually abused as a minor.

A 17-year-old tomboy who bloomed late, she had few friends, she said.

Then a teacher began to stalk her, praised her looks and intelligence, and listened to her share how the only boyfriend she ever had left her for someone else, she said. “He saw someone in a fragile place and pounced.”

At night, he would call and converse, she said, and the words he shared helped fill the emptiness she felt.

One night after returning to school from a track meet, she said the teacher plied her and a girlfriend with wine coolers. It was the first alcohol she had ever had, and she became drunk, she said.

The next thing she knew she was in a bedroom, and he was on top of her, she said. “I was a virgin.”

Afterward, she said, “I asked him, ‘Did we just have sex?’ I was clueless.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 1 in 4 girls in the U.S. are victims of sexual assault.

Like a number of other victims, Green suffered disassociation, she said. “It was almost like I wasn’t in my own body. I didn’t feel like I was there.”

Such disassociation is the brain’s way of placing distance between the victim and the traumatic event, scientists say.

She later wrote poems about what happened.

Keep quiet 

Don’t cry 

We can pretend it didn’t. 

We can lie. 

Her teacher told her she must never breathe a word about this, and if she did, he would kill himself. She said she believed him.

Your body

It is like none other.

It’s beautiful,

But you must never tell your mother.

Each school day, she sat in his class, and when he gazed at her, guilt and shame washed over her , she said. “I thought what the teacher did was my fault.”

Unable to sleep, she finally woke her mother to tell her what happened. “I didn’t know how to say, ‘My teacher raped me,’” she said. “I didn’t have the verbiage.”

For the first time in her life, she visited a gynecologist, who determined she wasn’t pregnant. 

When her family decided against pursuing charges, she blamed herself. “I was told to never talk about it,” she said, “and for 20 years, I didn’t.”

Marriage counseling gone wrong

In April 2021, Green and her husband walked into Wade Wicht’s office. 

She had been pushing for marriage counseling, and Wicht was the only counselor her husband would see.

What the couple didn’t know was that Wicht had already had sex with a client, according to an order from the State Board of Examiners for Licensed Professional Counselors, which oversees and licenses counselors.

After a few sessions, Wicht suggested separate counseling sessions, she said. Her husband’s sessions lasted 40 minutes or so; hers lasted up to two hours.

In a separate session with Wicht, she said she confessed her nervousness in talking about private matters and joked about needing a drink. She said he poured drinks for both of them — a habit he continued at times.

He steered conversations to the sexual, discussing the size of her breasts and asking if she had implants, she said. When she came to one counseling session after a workout, he questioned why she had a jacket tied around her waist, she said.

“Covering up a little bit,” she replied.

“Why are you doing that?” she recalled him asking.

Another time, she said he told her, “You need to be careful where your gaze goes. You stare at my crotch.” 

His words mortified her, she said, because it was a ridiculous lie.

After each session, he tried to hug her, and she recoiled. “He said I needed to be comfortable hugging,” she said. “He said I was stiff and uncomfortable.”

When she showed up one day with coffee, he told her to get him a coffee next time. “He mentioned that again and again,” she said. “I realize now he was seeing what he could get me to do.

“He eventually did get me to bring him a coffee. He did eventually get me to hug him.”

She said this was reminiscent of what her teacher did, getting her to bring him a Snickers candy bar and a Coke during each break.

The torment exhausting

The self-doubt to no end

The shame a coat of many colors

The secrets all held within.

‘It devastated me’

In October 2021, when her husband talked of possible harm to himself or others, Green said she felt scared and hopeless. She called Wicht’s office, and he rushed to their house.

After that, her trust and dependence on the counselor “went through the roof,” she said.

In her sessions, she said she confessed to Wicht that she was experiencing some transference, that is, redirecting her feelings from her husband to him.

He responded this could be beneficial for her therapy, she said. “Instead of passing me off to someone else, he used that to his advantage.”

The hugging progressed, she said. He began to hug her from behind and tell her it was therapeutic, she said.

He also put his hand on her knee and told her she needed to learn to say no, and in each session that followed, he touched her knee higher, she said. “Every time he touched me, I froze. I didn’t give consent.”

Studies show that many victims of sexual abuse or assault report “freezing.” That’s because fear can block the neural circuits that signal the body to move, scientists say.

Green said Wicht urged her to quit initiating sex with her husband and falsely claimed she suffered from sex addiction. “It devastated me,” she said.

When Wicht suggested she spend weeks at a treatment center, she said she balked, saying she couldn’t leave her husband and children.

He offered an alternative approach. He said he was a certified sex therapist, and she could do that therapy with him, she said.

In his 2018 letter to the licensing board, Wicht listed Chemical and ...

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