When a man in anger management counseling told his therapist he’d like to hurt a child-protection worker, the therapist acted within her professional duties to disclose the threats to a third party, but a judge should have disallowed her testimony, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The high court overturned the terroristic threats conviction of Jerry Expose Jr., 47, of St. Paul.

Expose had been ordered to complete anger-management training as part of his sentence for an earlier terroristic threats conviction after he threatened to kill his 6-year-old daughter, his ex-girlfriend and the ex-girlfriend’s unborn child in late 2011.

A new terroristic threats charge was filed in November 2012 after he made comments during an anger-management session.

Expose told his therapist that a child-protection worker for Ramsey County, identified as DP, was a barrier to getting his children back, according to the charges.

He told the therapist that if his upcoming court hearing “went awry he would break DP’s back. Expose said that if he couldn’t get to DP he would make a couple of calls to have her taken out,” the complaint said.

The therapist relayed the threats to the child-protection worker to warn her about what Expose said, the complaint said.

The therapist was identified as NM in the criminal complaint. Expose is suing her separately, and she was identified in the lawsuit as Nina Mattson.

At Expose’s criminal trial, the prosecution called the therapist as its first and primary witness, despite an objection from Expose, who said her testimony — without his consent — would violate therapist-client privilege, the Supreme Court said.

“The district court denied Expose’s motion, concluding that ‘the privilege does not apply to statements of imminent threat of harm … to a person or persons.’ According to the court, the statements were admissible ‘(a)s an exception to the privilege,’ ” the Supreme Court’s opinion Wednesday said.

But that interpretation of the law was incorrect because the state statute on therapist-client privilege does not contain a “threats exception,” and the district court abused its discretion by allowing the therapist to testify, the Supreme Court said.

The high court said the trial judge properly allowed testimony about Expose’s alleged threats toward the child care worker.

But the therapist’s improperly admitted testimony “provided the key evidence that Expose had acted recklessly with respect to causing terror” and “substantially influenced the verdict, “Justice David Stras wrote for the court.

So the Supreme Court affirmed the appeals decision to reverse Expose’s conviction.

Elizabeth Mohr can be reached at 651-228-5162. Follow her at twitter.com/LizMohr.