 For almost a month, federal prosecutors said, therapist Diane Sylvia planned a violent assault on a Massachusetts man with a stranger she believed to be a hitman. “He needs his pretty little face bashed in, that’s what I really want.” 
 
 “A broken arm would help, too.” 
 
 “Something so he can’t do push-ups, so he can’t work out.” 
 
 A licensed social worker who counsels individuals, couples and children in her office in Linwood, N.J., Ms. Sylvia, 58, was charged on Monday in federal court in Camden with one count of solicitation to commit a crime of violence. Sylvia, 58, of Somers Point, was introduced to the undercover agent by a patient with past connections to an unspecified "organized criminal gang," an FBI agent wrote in a criminal complaint, after she told the patient in September of her desire for revenge.
– A New Jersey psychotherapist was being extorted, and when one of her patients revealed in a session that he used to be in an organized crime gang, she allegedly hatched a plan for revenge. Police say Diane Sylvia, 58, asked her patient to get her in touch with a hitman so she could have the blackmailer murdered. Instead, the patient got in touch with the FBI in September and told the bureau what was going on, the New York Times reports. He pretended to get her in touch with a hitman, but the hitman was actually an undercover FBI agent. By the time Sylvia met with the agent in October, she had allegedly downgraded her plan from murder to assault. She allegedly worked with the agent for a month to put together a plan, NJ.com reports. "He needs his pretty little face bashed in, that’s what I really want," Sylvia, a licensed social worker, allegedly told the agent. "A broken arm would help, too. Something so he can’t do push-ups, so he can’t work out." According to court documents, she made similar requests multiple times, explaining that it would make her "feel better" after being blackmailed by the man for years. She told the agent the man had information on her that he was threatening to report to the licensing board, causing her to lose her job. After allegedly paying the agent $5,000 to beat up the man and disfigure him, she was arrested by the FBI Friday and charged Monday with solicitation to commit a crime of violence. She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. As for her patient, he canceled the rest of his sessions with her after cooperating with the FBI. (A teen allegedly hired a hitman to kill his jeweler dad.)