Swissvale therapist accused of having sexual relationship with teen ordered to stand trial

A Pittsburgh-area therapist was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges accusing her of having a yearslong sexual relationship with a boy starting when he was 14, but three of the most serious charges against her were thrown out.

Rachel Witkowski, 42, of Swissvale, waived her preliminary hearing Wednesday in exchange for prosecutors dismissing charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, unlawful contact with a minor and indecent assault, said her defense attorney Amy Beth Jones.

Witkowski, who runs a private counseling practice in Monroeville, now faces four counts of indecent assault, two counts of corruption of minors and one count each of statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, endangering the welfare of children, criminal use of a communication facility and making false reports of child abuse, court records show.

At least five of those charges are felonies.

She is scheduled to be arraigned in Allegheny County Common Pleas court on Nov. 28, according to court records.

“We intend to fight this in court,” Jones said after the hearing. “She is maintaining her innocence.”

The alleged victim, now 17, told police he and Witkowski had their first sexual interaction in 2019 and then began having intercourse regularly, often multiple times a week, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

The encounters started in March 2020 and ended in November 2022, when the boy got a girlfriend, the complaint said. Witkowski threatened the alleged victim to try to stop him from going to law enforcement, police said. The boy reported the alleged abuse to his school principal and a child-abuse referral system.

Jones declined to answer questions about Witkowski’s work as a licensed professional counselor.

Last week, the Department of State’s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs temporarily suspended Witkowski’s counseling license, according to a publicly accessible government website.

The bureau said following an Oct. 5 hearing that Witkowski’s continued practice “makes (her) an immediate and clear danger to the public health and safety.”

The bureau plans to hold a second hearing within 30 days of the first one, records show. Witkowski’s license was first issued Nov. 9, 2012.

Witkowski appeared to continue taking on new clients after police arrested her Sept. 1, according to a woman Witkowski treated.

Reynne Putnam said she reached out online to Witkowski’s practice, named Optimistic Outlook, and had an hourlong video session with her on Oct. 5, the same day as the licensing bureau’s hearing.

“She had all this experience with everything you could check a box on,” said Putnam, 32, of West View.

Witkowski then contacted Putnam on Sunday and told her she was unable to practice as a counselor. A counselor from another state advised Putnam to look up the status of her counseling license on the Department of State website, where she discovered the allegations against Witkowski.

“It was very unnerving,” Putnam said. “I definitely experienced a lot of shock when I learned everything about her. I was very shocked, uncomfortable.”