Keith Bakker

Last updated

Keith Bakker
Born
Keith Benjamin Bakker

(1960-11-24) November 24, 1960 (age 63)
New York City, United States
NationalityAmerican, Dutch
Occupation(s) Mental health practitioner, television personality
Television Van etter tot engel , Family Matters
Criminal charge(s) Sexual abuse, rape (2012) rape (2021)
Criminal penaltySentenced to 5 years imprisonment in 2012 & 4.5 years imprisonment in 2021
Criminal statusIncarcerated
Website keithbakkerofficial.com
keithbakkerfoundation.nl

Keith Benjamin Bakker (born November 24, 1960) is an American-Dutch former mental health practitioner and convicted criminal. He specialized in drug rehabilitation and became known in the Netherlands for his addiction rehabilitation clinic, Smith & Jones, and appearances on several Dutch television programs.

Contents

Bakker was sentenced to prison for the sexual abuse of several of his female ex-clients, and had been detained from April 2011 to September 2014.

Bakker was convicted and sentenced on March 3, 2021, on the charge of rape of a minor and sentenced to 4.5 years of imprisonment.

Personal life

Bakker grew up in Westport, Connecticut. He started using alcohol and drugs as a teenager, and used heroin for the first time on his eighteenth birthday. In the 1980's, Bakker worked as a roadie, traveling with Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce Springsteen, among others. [1]

Bakker came to Amsterdam in 1985. In the following years, his addiction to drugs continued, and he contracted HIV [2] from an infected syringe. In 1989, he came into contact with a social worker at Youth With A Mission, who helped him stop using drugs, and the two got married. Subsequently, Bakker became a music industry manager.

In 1996, Bakker relapsed into hard drug addiction.[ citation needed ] After a trial during which he threatened a police officer, he was sent to the Jellinek Clinic in Amsterdam, a drug addiction rehabilitation facility. In July 1998, he had a heart attack, which was the result of a drug overdose, but survived. A month later, Bakker had stopped using drugs after a stay in a hospital and following the Minnesota Model therapy program in Scotland.

Smith & Jones

In 2004, Bakker opened the Smith & Jones clinic for people with drug or alcohol addictions. In 2006 it became the first clinic in Europe to focus on people with a video game addiction. [3] The clinic had locations in Amsterdam and Wassenaar.

In the same period, Bakker also appeared regularly on Dutch television talk shows and reality series. He was a frequent guest on Spuiten en Slikken as an addiction expert, as well as coaching troubled teenagers (and their families) in Van etter tot engel and Family Matters. 2008 also saw the release of Bakker's biography entitled Pushing the Limits, written by Dutch author Leon Verdonschot.

By the end of 2009, during an interview with NCRV, Bakker falsely claimed that it was thanks to his clinic that he had managed to introduce the Twelve-Step Program to the Netherlands, which he had followed himself in Scotland, despite it already existing in the Netherlands before his clinic.

Having become involved in a renting conflict, Bakker resigned as manager of Smith & Jones in September 2010. The clinic itself closed shortly afterwards. [4]

Indictment and conviction

By the end of 2010, Bakker was accused of sexual abuse by several of his female clients. [5] After an investigation by the Amsterdam vice squad, Bakker was arrested in April 2011 and was held on remand. During the trial in March 2012, Bakker admitted that he sexually abused some of his clients, but denied that he had sexual intercourse with them. In April 2012, the court convicted Bakker of sexual abuse and sentenced him to five years imprisonment and a ten-year prohibition from executing his profession as a mental health practitioner. [6] His clinic, Smith & Jones, had already been declared bankrupt in March 2011. [7]

Bakker was released from prison in September 2014.

Bakker was arrested on new charges of rape and violating his professional ban in 2019.[ citation needed ] He was subsequently convicted on the charge of rape and sentenced to 4.5 years imprisonment on March 3, 2021. [8] After a successful appeal, his sentence was reduced to 18 months imprisonment. Subsequently, Bakker was released from prison on July 13, 2022.

Goliath Project

In 2018, Keith Bakker founded and launched the “Goliath project 2018”. The original "Goliath project" was launched in 2000 by him as well. The focus of the original Goliath project was cross-border healthcare inside the European Union based on Article 86 of the European treaty. [9] As a result of his efforts, two major UK clinics, Castle Craig and the Priory group, were able to treat Dutch patients in the United Kingdom. [10]

The Goliath project 2018 is an advocate/activist organization that is focused on medically managed addiction treatment for prisoners in the European Union. The basis for their efforts is article 3 of the EU human rights charter. [11]

Related Research Articles

Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which the convicted criminal is to remain in prison for the rest of their natural life. Crimes that warrant life imprisonment are extremely serious and usually violent. Examples of these crimes are murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, illegal drug trade, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated property damage, arson, hate crime, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, theft, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide.

Chemical castration is castration via anaphrodisiac drugs, whether to reduce libido and sexual activity, to treat cancer, or otherwise. Unlike surgical castration, where the gonads are removed through an incision in the body, chemical castration does not remove organs and is not a form of sterilization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Men's Colony</span> American male-only state prison

California Men's Colony (CMC) is an American male-only state prison located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo County, California, along the central California coast approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Robert John Maudsley is an English man convicted of multiple murders. Maudsley killed four people, with one of the killings taking place in a psychiatric hospital and two in prison after receiving a life sentence for a murder. Initial reports falsely stated he ate part of the brain of one of the men he killed in prison, which earned him the nickname "Hannibal the Cannibal" from parts of the British press and "The Brain Eater" amongst other prisoners. National newspapers were advised that the allegations were untrue, according to the post-mortem report. Maudsley is the longest-serving British prisoner in solitary confinement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Keith Jones</span> Australian convicted sex offender and burglar

Brian Keith Jones, formerly known as Brendan John Megson and Whispen, is an Australian sex offender who was convicted of the abduction and sexual assault of six male children between 1979 and 1980. Jones was given the nickname Mr Baldy for shaving his victims' hair and dressing them in female clothing during the attacks.

The precise definitions of and punishments for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated rape vary by country and by legislature within a country.

Frank Schmökel is a German convicted murderer and child rapist who has escaped from prison on multiple occasions. Schmökel and his crimes have inspired national discussions of reforming the German justice system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran</span> Male-only state prison in California, US

California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran (SATF) is a male-only state prison located in the city of Corcoran, in Kings County, California, specifically designed to house inmates who have substance use disorder. It is sometimes referred to as California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, and Corcoran II.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ali B</span> Moroccan Dutch rapper

Ali Bouali, known professionally as Ali B, is a Moroccan and Dutch rapper and entertainer. He is one of the most prominent rappers in the Netherlands and has collaborated with musicians such as Akon and Marco Borsato. He is seen as a leading figure in Dutch inter-ethnic relations.

The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Europe has affected several dioceses in European nations. Italy is an exceptional case as the 1929 Lateran Treaty gave the Vatican legal autonomy from Italy, giving the clergy recourse to Vatican rather than Italian law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andre Crawford</span> Convicted American serial killer

Andre Crawford was an American serial killer, rapist and necrophile who killed 11 women between 1993 and 1999 in Chicago. Many of the women were addicted to drugs or worked as sex workers. He also had sex with their corpses. In 2009, Crawford was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

The Amsterdam sex crimes case is a court case involving Robert Mikelson's abuse of babies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The defendant Mikelson, dubbed "the Monster of Riga" by the Dutch press, had worked at several daycare centres in Amsterdam and was accused of abusing 87 children as well as possession, production and distribution of child pornography. Mikelson was found guilty and sentenced to 18 years and 11 months in prison, followed by involuntary commitment.

Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern in Australia, and is the subject of investigation and prosecution under the law, and of academic study into the prevalence, causes and social implications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Kylie Maybury</span> 1984 child murder in Melbourne, Australia

Kylie Maria Antonia Maybury was an Australian schoolgirl from Preston, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Maybury was kidnapped, raped, and murdered on 6 November 1984, the date of the 1984 Melbourne Cup Day; and she was nicknamed in the Melbourne tabloid newspaper The Sun News-Pictorial as the Cup Day Girl.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Scully</span> Australian child sex offender, rapist and murderer

Peter Gerard Scully is an Australian convicted murderer and child rapist who is imprisoned for life in the Philippines after being convicted of one count of human trafficking and five counts of rape by sexual assault of children. Scully was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2018. In November 2022, he received a second conviction and was sentenced to an additional 129 years in prison.

The Keighley child sex abuse ring was a group of twelve men who committed serious sexual offences against two under-aged girls in the English town of Keighley and city of Bradford, West Yorkshire. In December 2015, they were found guilty of rape and other forms of sexual abuse by a unanimous jury verdict at Bradford Crown Court. They were sentenced in February 2016 to a total of 130 years in jail. The main victim, who had been targeted by ten of the men, was aged between 13 and 14 at the time of the attacks between 2011 and 2012.

"The Creeper" is an unidentified serial rapist, active in Gothenburg, Sweden during the 1990s. In June 2007, a man was arrested on suspicion of being the perpetrator, and was charged with five counts of rape and two counts of sexual assault. The suspected perpetrator was linked to at least one of the crime scenes via DNA evidence, with authorities also discovering that he had been convicted of rape in neighboring Norway.

References

  1. "When the game never ends". The Sydney Morning Herald . November 15, 2007.
  2. "Keith Bakker in tranen over slachtoffers". Algemeen Dagblad (in Dutch). August 31, 2016 [2012-03-12]. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
  3. Kuo, Li C. (June 1, 2006). "Europe Opens Its First Game Addiction Clinic". GameSpy. Archived from the original on May 1, 2013. Retrieved July 14, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. "Keith Bakker: Sluiting afkickkliniek is mijn schuld". www.eo.nl. Archived from the original on May 30, 2012. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
  5. "Keith Bakker misbruikt vrouwen". Telegraaf (in Dutch). Archived from the original on December 13, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  6. "Keith Bakker veroordeeld tot vijf jaar gevangenisstraf". de Rechtspraak (in Dutch). April 20, 2012. Archived from the original on March 15, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  7. "Faillissement beëindigd Smith & Jones Bv". Faillissements Dossier (in Dutch). Archived from the original on April 28, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  8. "Keith Bakker krijgt ruim vier jaar cel opgelegd voor verkrachting". NU (in Dutch). March 3, 2021. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  9. Budding, Janine (October 29, 2005). "VGZ wijst vergoeding behandeling van verslaafde in het buitenland af". Medical Facts (in Dutch).
  10. "Priory Klinieken Toegelaten Tot Het Nederlandse Zorgstelsel Door CVZ". Zorg en Financiering (in Dutch). 4 (8). Bohn Stafleu van Loghum: 125. August 2005. doi:10.1007/BF03091358. ISSN   1569-948X. S2CID   195375916.
  11. "The Goliath Project". The Goliath Project.