Case library / Convictions, and the duty to report one
A felony assault conviction, and no answer to the Board
In short
Registration revoked by default decision. The Board separately found its actual costs of enforcement to be $4,551.25 as
$4,551.25He filed no notice of defense within 15 days; the Board decided the case on the papers and revoked.
A revocation that turned as much on a missed 15-day deadline as on the conviction behind it.
What happened
The respondent was registered as an associate professional clinical counselor in May 2018. The registration expired in May 2019 and was never renewed, which under §4990.33 did not remove him from the Board’s jurisdiction.
In August 2022, in San Diego County Superior Court, he was convicted on his own guilty plea of violating Penal Code §245(a)(4), assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury, a felony. He was placed on two years of formal probation and committed to the custody of the sheriff for 2,060 days with credit for 2,060 days served. Among the other terms, he was ordered to complete a sex offender counseling program, to pay court fees and restitution, and to stay away from two women identified in the case as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2.
The conduct behind the plea occurred in April 2019. A woman reported that he solicited her for sex, that she got into his car, and that he drove to an isolated industrial area. He told her to get out of the car, then lifted her dress and groped her breasts over her bra. She insisted that he pay before sex; he refused and continued. When she became frightened and tried to push him away, he grabbed her by the neck and squeezed her larynx and trachea until she could not breathe, and a violent struggle followed before she fought him off and ran. A human trafficking task force investigated and located a second victim who had been assaulted in a similar way. He was arrested the following month.
The Board filed its accusation in January 2023 and served it the next day by certified and first class mail at his address of record — the address B&P §136 requires every registrant to report and maintain. He filed no notice of defense within 15 days, which under Government Code §11506(c) waived his right to a hearing. Under Government Code §11520 the Board took the matter by default, decided it on a default decision investigatory evidence packet, and found the charges true by clear and convincing evidence.
What it was charged as
A board may suspend or revoke a license on the ground that the licensee was convicted of a crime substantially related to the qualifications, functions, or duties of the profession.
Unprofessional conduct for a professional clinical counselor or associate includes conviction of a substantially related crime; the record of conviction is conclusive proof only that the conviction occurred, and the Board may look behind it at the circumstances.
Assault upon another by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. The offense of conviction here, taken by guilty plea as a felony.
Defines “substantially related” for BBS licensees: a crime qualifies if to a substantial degree it evidences present or potential unfitness to perform the licensed functions consistently with public health, safety, or welfare, weighing the nature and gravity of the offense and the years elapsed.
Sets the rehabilitation criteria the Board applies when considering revocation for a conviction, including completion of the criminal sentence without violation and compliance with the terms of probation.
Requires each board to develop criteria for evaluating rehabilitation, and to consider a showing of rehabilitation where the criminal sentence was completed without a parole or probation violation.
The outcome
Registration revoked by default decision. The Board separately found its actual costs of enforcement to be $4,551.25 as of March 15, 2023; the order itself contains no payment term. He had seven days from service of the decision to move to have it vacated for good cause.
$4,551.25ordered in cost recovery under B&P §125.3What the rule actually says
A conviction supports discipline when it is substantially related to the qualifications, functions, or duties of the license — 16 CCR §1812 defines that as conduct evidencing, to a substantial degree, present or potential unfitness to practice consistently with public health, safety, or welfare — and the record of conviction is conclusive that it happened. The other half of this case is pure procedure, and it is the half that decides outcomes. Business and Professions Code §136 requires you to report and maintain a current address of record; service there is effective as a matter of law whether or not you still live there. A notice of defense is due within 15 days of service. Missing it waives the hearing and lets the Board decide on affidavits and an investigative packet alone.
Discussion
Analysis, not part of the decision
Two separate things are happening in this document, and they are worth pulling apart. One is a felony conviction. The other is a default. He filed no notice of defense within 15 days of service, which under Government Code §11506(c) waives the right to a hearing, and the Board then proceeded under §11520 on a default decision investigatory evidence packet, finding the allegations true by clear and convincing evidence without hearing a witness. Nothing about the conviction required that result; the silence did.
Service was at the address of record, which is where the procedural trap sits. Section 136 makes maintaining that address an affirmative obligation, and service there is effective by operation of law. His registration had already expired in 2019, four years before the accusation was filed, but §4990.33 keeps the Board’s jurisdiction alive over an expired registration. A registrant who leaves the field, stops renewing, and stops updating an address has not exited the system — he has only stopped receiving mail from it, while the file stays open and the outcome becomes automatic.
The substantial-relationship analysis is what converts a criminal case into a licensing case, and it is not self-evident here. The offense of conviction was assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury — a violence charge, not a professional one, arising from conduct that had nothing to do with a client. Section 490 and §4999.90(a) require the crime to be substantially related to the functions of the license, and 16 CCR §1812 defines that as evidencing present or potential unfitness. The circumstances the Board recited — a sexual assault that ended in strangulation, a second victim found by a human trafficking task force, a sentence including sex offender counseling and stay-away orders — are what supply the relationship.
It is also a study in what rehabilitation evidence is for. Section 482 and 16 CCR §1814 direct the Board to weigh completion of the sentence, compliance with probation, elapsed time, and whatever the licensee puts forward. In a default, nothing is put forward. Whatever mitigation existed went unsaid, and a default decision is a full revocation on the public record, with a seven-day window to move to vacate and no hearing on the merits at all.
Where insurance reaches, and where it does not
A criminal defense is paid out of pocket — every professional liability policy excludes criminal and intentional acts, with no exception for a plea to a lesser count. The board-defense benefit is the only part of a policy that could have mattered here, and its reach is worth checking before you need it, because many programs tie it to allegations arising out of professional services and this conduct arose outside practice entirely. Even where the benefit applies, cost recovery under §125.3 is not a defense cost and no sublimit pays it. And a default costs nothing to enter and everything to lose: there is no coverage question at all if no one files an answer.
What would have changed it
- Keep your address of record current with the Board and keep reading that mailbox even after you stop practicing — service there is legally effective, and the Board’s jurisdiction survives an expired registration.
- File a notice of defense within 15 days of any accusation, even if you intend to give the license up; it preserves a hearing you can still settle later.
- If you are convicted of anything, gather the court records and produce them — 16 CCR §1814 makes compliance with the sentence and evidence of rehabilitation the criteria the Board actually applies.
Questions
For a law and ethics seminar, or for yourself
- The Board resolved this on default, without testimony. What is lost — for the registrant, for the public record, and for the next case that cites this one — when the facts are established by an investigative packet rather than at hearing?
- Section 490 requires that the crime be substantially related to the functions of the license. Build the strongest argument in both directions for a conviction arising from conduct with no client involved, and identify the single fact that decides it.
- The registration expired in 2019 and the accusation arrived in 2023. What does a registrant who has left the profession owe the Board about an expired registration, an open investigation, and an address of record — and what would you advise a supervisee who says she is simply letting hers lapse?
Source. This write-up is drawn from the signed public decision in the case number above. Names, cities and employers have been removed — why. To pull the original, open the Board's quarterly newsletter archive, find the issue covering May 18, 2023, and match the case number in the Formal Disciplinary Actions section. Not legal advice.
