Dec. 28, 1954

Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington was born in Mount Vernon, New York, the son of a beautician and Pentecostal preacher. 

Washington planned on pursuing a career in journalism, but while at Fordham University, he appeared in several student drama productions and became obsessed with acting. 

After his first paying gig in a summer stock theater production in Maryland, he began to pursue television and movie roles. He made his first big screen appearance in the 1981 film, “Carbon Copy,” and a year later won the role of Dr. Philip Chandler in NBC’s hit medical series “St. Elsewhere.” 

Washington continued to make films, including the 1984 film, “A Soldier’s Story,” where he drew critical notice for his performance. Five years later, he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the 1989 film “Glory” and later won for Best Actor in the 2001 film “Training Day.” 

In 2016, the Golden Globes honored him with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, and three years later, the American Film Institute bestowed its Life Achievement Award. In 2022, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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 Process Addictions as an area of certification, but not sex therapy.

Green said Wicht asked her to share intimate details about her past abuse, including whether she bled, she said.

When she wouldn’t share details about what she liked sexually, he urged her to masturbate so he could observe, she told police in her complaint. She refused.

Lie to myself or subconscious 

Should I say?

Lie like a good girl.

Be the perfect prey.

‘I became a scared little girl’

Four days after Christmas, Green suffered a meltdown. Three family members suffered from serious illness, and memories of her teacher’s abuse haunted her, she said. “I was crying uncontrollably.”

In desperation, she telephoned Wicht, who called her to his office.

This time, when he hugged her from behind, he began to caress her breasts over her clothing, she said. “He said, ‘This is loving touch,’ and I’m just sobbing.”

She continued to reel from depression. In a March 2022 session, she said he asked her to remove her clothes. She had refused to do this before, but this time she said she broke down and gave in, crying the whole time.

The commands he gave her echoed some of the same commands she had been given as a child, she said. “That day at the office, I became a scared little girl. I had no choice but to be compliant. I was the perfect prey.”

Wicht made her put a blindfold on, made her lie on her stomach and spread her bottom cheeks, and “he proceeded to penetrate me with his fingers,” she told police. When he finished, “he held me and acted as if it had been a caring moment,” she told police. “That was the last time he touched me.”

She froze, just as she had before, she said.

One study showed that 70% of 298 women who came to a rape clinic for treatment reported “paralysis” or an inability to resist during the assault.

Throughout Wicht’s abuse, Green told police, “He would remind me I could never in my life breathe a word of it. Said someone could die or be killed if I did. This was triggering as my abuser from teen years threatened to kill himself if I told anyone.”

After this abuse, she said thoughts of self-harm flooded her mind. She posted the suicide prevention hotline number on her wall, and sometimes slept in the closet.

The stillness. The peace.

The madness. The dire.

When will it end?

I long to expire.

After the alleged abuse, Green sought treatment from another therapist, whom she said helped rescue her from her despair.

She has since spoken to other of Wicht’s alleged victims, some of whom have yet to file complaints, she said. “He convinced women that they’re damaged, and you’re going to be beholden to him so that you don’t tell anybody,” she said.

Counselors have power over their clients, she said. They can groom, lie, manipulate and coerce those they treat into obeying their commands because “we believe we must do as we are told,” she said. 

It’s bad enough for a trusted person to exploit you, but when it’s a counselor, who knows so many intimate details about your life, she said, “It rapes every part of your soul and mind.”

How sick 

And how twisted and who

The f— let that happen? 

Keep quiet 

Don’t cry 

We can pretend it didn’t. 

We can lie. 

‘The law protects the guilty’

Wicht has already admitted to having sex with two women he counseled, a violation of the ethical code that prompted the loss of his counseling license. 

One of those was Kimberly Cuellar, who has filed a criminal complaint against Wicht. She told police that in one counseling session, he had her lay on the floor, pulled down her pants and digitally penetrated her without her consent, claiming it was for his research. She said he continued to touch her sexually in sessions, claiming it was therapeutic.

In addition to those allegations, she said he tried to rape her while she was sleeping in her parents’ home in 2023. She said she awoke to him on top of her. “You moved my shorts, and you absolutely tried to get inside me,” she wrote in text exchanges she shared with Mississippi Today.

“Omgoodness, what??!! … What you’re accusing me of is criminal, Kimberly! … I touched you with my fingers, and I was touching myself,” he responded. “I was NOT trying to have sex with you while you were sleeping.”

She told him “no” multiple times, but he refused to stop, she wrote. “You then touched me without consent while you ejaculated on my body after all the no’s I had given. Attempted rape? Absolutely.”

In April, another licensed professional counselor in Mississippi, Dr. Philip Raymond Baquie of Oxford, surrendered his license after he admitted having sex with a female client during a counseling session in December 2023.

More than half the states consider sex between mental health professionals and their patients a crime. Mississippi isn’t one of those states.

In 2023, the Mississippi House passed a bill that would have made it a crime for therapists, clergy, doctors and nurses to have sexual contact with those they treat or counsel.

But the bill died in the Senate Judiciary B Committee after some senators questioned the need for a law. Committee Chairman Joey Fillingane has said if something like this happens in a church-affiliated organization, the church can fire that person.

Brad Eubank, a pastor for First Baptist Church in Petal who serves on the Southern Baptist Convention’s sex abuse task force, said firing those guilty of sexual abuse isn’t enough.

“We must stop this scourge of sexual abuse and put a stop to any counselor, medical professional, social worker or clergy who would take advantage of an individual who finds themselves in a vulnerable state seeking help,” said Eubank, a victim of sexual abuse himself. “We need clear laws with stiff penalties to be a severe deterrent to stop this from ever happening as well as providing justice for those victims when it does happen.”

Green said she’s willing to testify to lawmakers to let them know that when counselors use their power to sexually abuse their clients, they deserve to be punished.

Because there is no videotaping of sessions, the counselor’s office provides “the perfect setting for that crime,” she said. “That’s why there needs to be protection.”

This crime damages victims for life, she said. “Sexual abuse distorts, if not destroys, the victims’ ability to express romantic love in a healthy way. Stealing that part of us should not go without consequences.”

Under Mississippi’s current statute, “the law protects the guilty,” she said. “We as sexual abuse victims don’t stand a chance.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Dec. 27, 1919

Black World War I veteran Powell Green was lynched by a mob of white men near Franklinton, North Carolina. 

Many returning Black soldiers, who wanted their full rights as citizens, became targets of violence. Green was arrested for allegedly killing a “prominent” white movie theater owner, but he was never able to defend himself in a court of law. A mob of masked white men abducted him as while officers were transporting the 23-year-old from the jail in Franklinton to the jail in Raleigh. 

During that kidnapping, Green broke free from the mob, but they managed to overtake him and tied him to a car, and he was dragged for at least a half mile before they shot him and hung him. 

In the days that followed, crowds flocked to the site of his lynching. According to press accounts, “souvenir hunters” cut buttons and pieces of clothing from the body and later cut down the tree for more keepsakes. One news account seemed to suggest Green was to blame for his death, saying that he “was disposed to think well of himself and was self-assertive.” 

No one was ever prosecuted for his killing, one of at least 80 lynchings that took place in 1919.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.