Counselor is charged with trading clean drug tests for sexual favors!

A counselor at a substance abuse treatment facility in Barnegat was charged yesterday with demanding sexual favors from two of his clients in return for promising they would pass drug tests, authorities said.

Gregory Donnell, 52, of Little Egg Harbor, was charged with two counts of sexual assault, Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford and Barnegat Police Chief Ar thur Drexler said.

Donnell, a five-year employee of Preferred Behavioral Health Center, allegedly coerced two women he counseled to engage in sexual acts, authorities said. In exchange, he swapped their urine samples with ones that would ensure negative test results for the presence of drugs, they said.

The complaints said one of the assaults occurred on Feb. 1, 2006, and the other on June 1, 2007.

Donnell, who is married and has children, was lodged at the Ocean County jail in Toms River in lieu of $200,000 bail. He was ordered to have no contact with the women and is not permitted to counsel women undergoing court-mandated substance abuse treatment, authorities said.

The investigation is continuing, and anyone with information is asked to contact prosecutor's Investigator Jay Steele at (732) 929-2027, ext. 2432.