Keith Bakker
| Keith Bakker | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Keith Benjamin Bakker November 24, 1960 New York City, New York, United States |
| Residence | Hilversum, North Holland, Netherlands |
| Nationality | American, Dutch |
| Occupation | Mental health practitioner, television personality |
| Television | Van etter tot engel, Family Matters |
| Criminal charge | Sexual abuse, rape |
| Criminal penalty | Sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in 2012 |
| Criminal status | Released |
| Website |
keithbakker |
Keith Benjamin Bakker (born November 24, 1960) is an American-Dutch former mental health practitioner. Having been a long-time drug addict himself, he specialized in drug rehabilitation and became known in the Netherlands for his addiction clinic Smith & Jones and appearances on several Dutch television programs.
Bakker was sentenced to prison for the sexual abuse of female ex clients and had been detained from April 2011 to September 2014.
Bakker grew up in Westport, Connecticut in an unstable family environment. His father was an alcoholic businessmann who had emigrated from the Netherlands. Bakker started using alcohol and drugs himself as a teenager. He used heroin for the first time on his eighteenth birthday. In the 1980s, Bakker worked for some time as a roadie, travelling with Michael Jackson, Prince and Bruce Springsteen, among others.
Bakker came to Amsterdam in 1985. The following years were those of severe drug addiction, leading a lifestyle of sleeping under bridges, scamming tourists to earn money and searching trash cans for food. He also contracted HIV after using an infected syringe. In 1989, he came into contact with a social worker of Youth With A Mission, who helped him become clean. After that, Bakker married and became a music industry manager.
In 1996, Bakker relapsed into a hard drug addiction. After a trial during which he threatened a police officer because he wanted to be convicted, he was sent to the Jellinek clinic in Amsterdam. In July 1998, he had a heart attack after having taken an overdose of drugs under a bridge. A month later, Bakker was clean again after a stay in a hospital and following the Minnesota Model therapy program in Scotland. He subsequently decided to start helping other addicts getting rid of their addiction.
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