William Dale Robinson

CHEYENNE (WNE) — A former Cheyenne counselor convicted of sexually assaulting a patient and defrauding Medicaid received prison time during a hearing Friday morning in Laramie County District Court.

Laramie County District Judge Catherine Rogers sentenced William Dale Robinson to three to five years of incarceration for a felony count of second-degree sexual assault by a health care provider. Under Wyoming law, a person commits the crime when they have sexual contact while acting in their “capacity as a health care provider in the course of providing care, treatment, services or procedures to maintain, diagnose or otherwise treat a patient’s physical or mental condition.”

Robinson said he and a patient had sexual contact during a regularly scheduled therapy session in July 2018, and that he billed Medicaid and received reimbursement for both the June and July visits.

A 12- to 16-month sentence for a felony count of obtaining property by false pretenses in an amount greater than $1,000 — associated with incorrectly billing Medicaid — will run concurrently with this sentence. Robinson had one day of credit for time served.

Robinson, who is 38, brought a cashier’s check for $6,397.36 to the courtroom. It’s the amount he’d falsely claimed from Medicaid and he agreed to repay the sum to the Wyoming Department of Health’s Division of Healthcare Financing as restitution.

While working as a licensed professional counselor and part-owner of Capitol Counseling, Robinson had an ongoing sexual relationship with the patient, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in the case. In the plea agreement, he said he’d approached the woman during a June 2018 therapy session about beginning the sexual relationship.

As part of a stipulated plea agreement, Robinson pleaded guilty to the two felony charges in July.