School counselor charged with child rape

A 39-year-old counselor at a Puyallup junior high was charged with child rape and molestation Friday for an alleged sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl she met at the school.

Police and Pierce County prosecutors said the counselor, Diane Amanda Hillman, of Puyallup, had been having a relationship with the girl for about five months.

The investigation began after the two were found together in a vehicle at a public park after midnight by a sheriff's deputy in April, according to charging documents filed in Pierce County Superior Court.

While both the counselor and the girl said they'd been to a movie and were just talking, the deputy who discovered them was concerned, took the girl home and contacted the school, according to Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer.

In August, the girl's mother contacted police saying she'd found intimate text messages from the counselor to her child, and the girl later told police that the relationship had become physical after Hillman broke up with her girlfriend, charging documents allege.

"There are laws in place so that a person in a position of power — a teacher, a counselor or a jail guard — will know that the consequences of their behavior will be career-ending, humiliating and that they will be on TV," said Troyer. "But that doesn't stop them."

Hillman, who has been charged with three counts of third-degree child rape and one count of child molestation, was arraigned on Friday and is scheduled for her next court appearance Aug. 28.