To Maurice Harker’s supporters, a licensing board’s recommendation Thursday to stop him from returning to work as a therapist threatened to deprive others of help.

To the former patient who reported that he restrained and injured her during sessions, it was the right step.

The Behavioral Health Board recommended that Harker be barred from applying for a therapy license for five years, after the former-therapist-turned-life-coach pleaded no contest to charges in connection to the patient’s report.

The board wasn’t reviewing the underlying allegations in the criminal case; it was instead considering a portion of Utah licensing law. When a licensed professional is charged with a crime related to their ability to work safely — and then enters a plea like Harker’s — that decision is considered evidence of “unprofessional conduct” that can affect their ability to get a license.

The director of Utah’s Division of Professional Licensing will make the final decision about the board’s recommendation.

The board’s vote drew passionate comments from more than a half dozen of Harker’s supporters, mostly life coaches who work for him and clients who credited him with helping their marriage. Many of them joined the public meeting through a video call.

“He is a good person,” said one woman, who identified herself only as Miriam on her video panel. “I don’t want other people to miss out on not getting the help they so deserve because of accusations that have not even been proven.”

In February, Harker pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of unlawful detention and reckless endangerment. The pleas were held in abeyance, meaning the charges will be dismissed next year if he completes probation and pays $28,000 in restitution to the former patient.

As part of the no-contest plea, Harker did not have to admit to the underlying accusations. Harker emphasized that point during his comments to the board on Thursday, saying that the “broader allegations were never adjudicated as true.”

Mia Chard, the former patient, told The Salt Lake Tribune that she reported to police and licensors that Harker held her to the ground during therapy sessions, at times covering her nose and mouth so she couldn’t breathe, and at other times dragging her on the floor.

She was struggling with trauma from childhood sexual abuse when she started seeing Harker in 2012, she said, at the urging of her bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

About three years into treatment, she alleges, Harker began holding her down and hurting her during near-daily appointments, telling her he was trying to rid her of a demon.

Harker allowed his therapy license to expire while state regulators investigated her report. But he has continued to see clients — as a life coach, a largely unregulated role in Utah. He said Thursday that he has not sought a therapy license since his expired in 2022.

He was well known in the Latter-day Saints community not only as a therapist, but also for the support groups he ran through Life Changing Services, which aimed to help young members who felt they were struggling with pornography use or masturbation.

He also authored Like Dragons Did They Fight, a faith-based self-help book that uses warrior imagery and spiritual-psychological principles to frame the struggle to overcome addiction and build “self-mastery.”

The warrior imagery was on display Thursday: Harker held a leather tablet cover bearing a sticker that reads, “I AM AN ETERNAL WARRIOR, ARE YOU?”

Given the no-contest plea, the Division of Professional Licensing is seeking to ban him from reapplying for a license as a therapist over the next five years. Though the Behavioral Health Board supported that outcome on Thursday, it is not final yet and needs the approval of the division director, Mark Steinagel.

It’s possible Harker will continue fighting this proposed outcome. He did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, but he peppered board members with questions about how he could contest the division’s findings.

Harker’s supporters attempted to cast doubt on the allegations during public comment, including one couple who said that the husband had been working with Harker since he was 14 years old.

“We would not have a marriage without Maurice,” the wife, Elora O’Carey, said. The woman is listed as a life coach on Life Changing Services’ website.

Harker’s supporters appeared frustrated when board members at one point cut off any futher public comments about his case, and soon after, ended the board meeting. “Kangaroo court!” one man exclaimed as the online portion of the meeting ended.

Among those voices, Chard defended herself. She said she had evidence of what happened, including a recording where he admitted to some of what she says happened. “I’m not lying,” she said in the Thursday meeting.

“You did the right thing,” she told board members. “My life has been altered beyond any shadow of a doubt.”