MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A mental health specialist hired to do at-home therapy sessions with a Miami Beach teenager in 2017 began a sexual relationship with him, according to police. Seven years later, she’s now facing a felony charge.
Miami Beach police arrested Sandra Janneth Alvarez, 54, of Pembroke Pines, on Tuesday. According to an arrest report, while the charge stems from her work in the private sector, she now works for Broward County Public Schools, providing counseling at two elementary schools.
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The report states that Alvarez began the relationship with the boy when he was 15 or 16 and she worked for a company called Healthy Solutions for Children and Families. Police said she was to work with him on his “unruly behavior” during at-home visits.
Those sessions soon turned sexual, police said. The report states that “the two began to get comfortable with each other and they would share hugs, kisses and eventually engaged in penile/vaginal intercourse on multiple occasions in his bedroom during their therapy sessions.”
Even after Alvarez terminated their therapy sessions in April 2018, police said the pair remained in touch and text messages showed that Alvarez and the victim, now an adult, discussed meeting in Naples this April.
Authorities said the victim viewed the encounters as “consensual.”
“However, he said that now, being 23 years old, he understands the age discrepancy and that he was a juvenile and she was an adult at the time,” the report states.
Police said the victim is now the subject of an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigation in St. Petersburg, where he now lives. That investigation, they said, played a role in his decision to come forward.
“He said that now that he is in his current situation where he is subject to an ICAC investigation and in a sounder state of mind, he realized how wrong the situation was and how it may have affected his development, mental state and decision-making ability,” police wrote in the report.
The report doesn’t disclose the nature of the St. Petersburg ICAC investigation.
His mother contacted Miami Beach detectives on his behalf in September to report the crime, police said.
The report states that detectives conducted a controlled phone call between the victim and Alvarez on Nov. 13. Much of what the pair allegedly discussed was redacted.
“(The victim) asked her if she missed having sex with him, in which she replied (redacted),” the report states.
Police said Alvarez agreed to meet with Miami Beach police on Tuesday for an interview.
She confirmed that the boy was her patient and that the pair would do private sessions, the report states.
“When asked about their sexual encounters, Alvarez did not wish to provide a statement,” police said.
Authorities arrested Alvarez on a first-degree felony charge of sexual battery by a person in a position of familial or custodial authority. According to state statutes, she could spend the rest of her life in prison.
Local 10 News contacted BCPS Wednesday seeking comment on her arrest and employment status and had not received a response as of publication of this article.
As of Wednesday, jail records show that Alvarez was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $10,000 bond.