Scott Curtis Redman, 35, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of misdemeanor practicing psychological therapy without a license. Judge Thomas O’Hara sentenced Redman to one year of court supervision and ordered him to pay $2,360 to a Homer Glen woman he provided therapy to for a year.
A Hammond, Ind., man who was providing unlicensed psychology services in the Southland will avoid jail time if he pays restitution and avoids contact with a victim who sought therapy from him in 2013 for coping skills stemming from childhood trauma.
More Top Picks Best Heated Dog Beds
Scott Curtis Redman, 35, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of misdemeanor practicing psychological therapy without a license.
Judge Thomas O’Hara sentenced Redman to one year of court supervision and ordered him to pay $2,360 to a Homer Glen woman he provided therapy to for a year.
“That’s a drop in the bucket for what he did to me,” 44-year-old Kathy Baran said at the Cook County courthouse in Markham.
Failing to meet the requirements of the supervision will result in a harsher punishment, the judge said Wednesday.
Redman told O’Hara he would “make all efforts” to pay the restitution as soon as possible. He had been scheduled to go to trial this week.
Baran was set to testify that she paid him $120 a month for sessions. She had first learned about Redman, who was denied a license by the state at least three times, in an advertisement placed in Psychology Today, she said. In late 2014, Baran confronted Redman after a friend pointed out information about his arrest record on the Internet, she said.
Redman was told to stop practicing psychology by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation in a June 2014 cease and desist order
South Holland police arrested Redman on Dec. 30, 2014, after Baran showed them what she had found.
Baran said she had found an advertisement for Redman on Psychology Today and began seeing him regularly for 30-minute sessions, police said.
Baran revealed “very personal ‘things'” to Redman, believing him to be “a doctor of psychology,” but became alarmed when a friend told her Redman is a “scam artist,” police said.
Authorities said Redman had moved offices to different cities across the south suburbs, including Oak Forest, Oak Lawn and South Holland, while he was seeing patients
Another of Redman’s alleged patients, 35-year-old Francita Leslie of Dolton, told the Daily Southtown she paid for therapy sessions with the man in 2013 and 2014 at a Tinley Park office for both her and her teenage son. Leslie, who visited the Markham courthouse on Monday for Redman’s scheduled trial, said she was surprised more people aren’t coming forward.
“You do not play with someone’s mind,” Leslie said.
Nick Swedberg is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.