by LAURA GLESBY The new haven independent
A rehab facility fired Alder Ron Hurt as a therapist after a months-long sexual and romantic relationship between him and a patient came to light.
Hurt worked as a therapist, and later a supervisor, at Retreat Behavioral Health’s New Haven addiction rehab center, until the organization fired him in mid-October of 2023. (The rehab center has since closed down, after the national Retreat organization unraveled.)
Hurt, 52, is currently serving his fourth consecutive term on the Board of Alders, having first been elected to represent the Hill’s Ward 3 in 2018. He is also an elder at Pentecostal Deliverance Temple Church, where he ran the affiliated Deliverance Temple Outreach House, a social services provider within his ward on Congress Avenue.
The patient in question had checked into Retreat for one month for opioid addiction treatment. Hurt exchanged numbers with the patient inside Retreat’s facility. The pair entered a sexual relationship within weeks of the patient’s discharge from the inpatient program, while the patient was still enrolled in outpatient treatment at Retreat, according to the patient.
The relationship lasted over six months, according to the patient, who was 25 years old at the time. He asked not to be named in this story to protect his privacy; he provided the Independent with medical records verifying that he was a Retreat patient.
The relationship violated core ethical and professional norms in the addiction treatment field, according to former Retreat employees, a representative of the Connecticut Association for Addiction Professionals, and the Association for Addiction Professionals’ national code of ethics.
After the relationship came to administrators’ attention, Retreat fired Hurt in October 2023, according to two employees with knowledge of the situation.
Soon before, Hurt had identified himself as a “clinical team lead” at Retreat in public testimony submitted to the state legislature.
When asked this month for a comment, Hurt said he would talk to his lawyer before discussing “my termination” from Retreat.
“There’s really nothing to talk about,” he said. “It was a matter that happened with me personally.”
Pressed on why he pursued the relationship given the imbalance of authority between a therapist and a patient, Hurt stated, “I don’t think that was a power dynamic.” He has not responded to subsequent requests for comment.
The patient, meanwhile, said that Hurt used his role as an addiction counselor to exploit someone in a vulnerable state of mind.
“I thought he was trying to help me,” the patient said.