Alder Fired From Drug Rehab Job After Sexual Relationship With Patient

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.

In Rehab: A Search, A Number Exchange

On a foggy day in early November of 2022, the patient checked in to Retreat Behavioral Health’s rehab center at 915 Ella T. Grasso Blvd.

The patient, 25, was seeking rehab for the second time in his life. He’d become dependent on Percocet painkillers. ​“I was addicted and I couldn’t stop. I got withdrawals even if I tried to stop,” he said. On Nov. 4, he returned to Retreat, the same treatment center he’d gone to before, to seek help for an opioid addiction.

As the patient was signing in, he recalled, Ron Hurt walked into the room and introduced himself. 

According to the patient, Hurt volunteered to conduct his strip and cavity search, a procedure required for every client upon check-in. The searches were a standard practice at Retreat to ensure that drugs wouldn’t be smuggled into the facility. Searches were supposed to be conducted by techs or nurses, according to two former employees as well as a state report on Retreat’s internal search policy; Hurt had neither of those roles.

“I find it strange that he volunteered himself to do it,” the patient recalled, but at the time, ​“I didn’t really think anything of it.”

The patient said that over the course of his time as an inpatient at Retreat, Hurt was ​“nice to me around the facility. He checked on me in my room one time.” He became a trusted figure at the center. ​“I thought he was a nice guy. I was attracted to him, I’m not gonna lie,” the patient said.

Just before the patient left the facility, he and Hurt exchanged phone numbers. The patient said that he asked Hurt to serve as his sponsor before leaving the facility, and that Hurt agreed.

Hurt and the patient texted frequently after the patient’s discharge in early December. ​“He talked about wanting to meet up,” the patient said. ​“He invites me over.” A couple of weeks after his discharge from Retreat, the patient said, the two began a sexual and romantic relationship. 

“I’m still mind blown that we really ended up with each other. Especially after the vibe I felt when u first walked in the room,” the patient texted Hurt one evening.

“Yeah, it’s real!” Hurt responded.

“I Need You To Be Addicted To Me”

Text messages reveal how Hurt tried to square this relationship with his continued role as a counselor at Retreat. 

In one message, he wrote to the patient, ​“Yeah, I don’t want you missing IOP,” referring to an ​“intensive outpatient” program that the patient was supposed to attend at Retreat during the time of their relationship. 

“I haven’t been looking at your attendance bc I trust you doing the right thing,” Hurt wrote.

“Well I’m not doing drugs that’s what really matters… to me,” the patient responded.

“True… have I asked you or made mention of you using? I’m not that guy!” Hurt wrote. ​“And I’m proud of you,” he wrote, adding celebratory emojis.

“Nah I was just letting you know. Thank you,” the patient replied.

“I need you to be addicted to me,” Hurt wrote, followed by three tongue-out emojis.

“Good thing I am then,” the patient wrote.

The pair texted every day, according to the patient. They exchanged heart emojis and ​“love you“s. Hurt referred to the patient as ​“baby boi” and arranged for late-night Lyft rides that the patient could take to his home.

According to the patient, after over half a year, Hurt ceased contact in the early fall of 2023 without explanation.

“I guess when he was just… done with me or whatever … he sort of just abandoned me. That really messed up my head,” he said. 

The patient found himself struggling in the aftermath.

He said that at one point, he texted Hurt that he wanted to go back to rehab, but never heard back. The patient decided not to go back to Retreat, fearing that he would run into Hurt. 

Instead, he approached a separate clinic and began receiving medication-based treatment.

"The Most Extremely Vulnerable State"

According to state Department of Public Health Spokesperson Christopher Boyle, Hurt did not have a Connecticut license to provide mental health care or substance use disorder treatment — though per state statute (chapter 383c, sec. 20 – 195bb), he was allowed to serve as a counselor due to his background as a clergy member. 

“Religious or spiritual counselors are not required to have a license,” Boyle said.

Had he possessed a license, Hurt would have been required to undergo ethical training. He also would have been subject to state investigations into complaints, with any findings of misconduct made available to future employers and to the public at large.

Susan Campion, president of the Connecticut Association for Addiction Professionals, said that trained professionals learn not only about the addiction treatment field’s ethical codes, but about the precarious psychological and social state experienced by most patients reeling from addiction. 

“The patient is in the most extremely vulnerable state. They’re literally fighting for their life. That is the priority,” she said. While conversations between therapists and patients can become intensely personal, ​“that’s why a code of ethics is established: so that the clinician is clearly aware of the boundaries.”

In addition to taking internal action, Retreat reported Hurt’s conduct to the state Department of Public Health (DPH), according to one former Retreat administrator, who attested to interacting with a DPH investigator looking into the incident.

When asked about any state inquiries into Hurt’s actions, DPH spokesperson Christopher Boyle stated, ​“I can’t release any details about any investigations.” 

A therapist’s decision to enter a relationship with a patient is ​“definitely unethical,” said one former Retreat employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ​“It’s not something that myself or any of the people I knew who worked at Retreat would ever consider doing.”

“There’s a power dynamic about it. … The power dynamic is that one person is the client and the other is the authority figure or the doctor,” the employee said. ​“And there’s the positional dynamic of, ​‘I’m here to help you recover from something, but here we go, I’m also willing to completely exploit that and take advantage of it.’”

The patient said he does not believe Hurt should be allowed to continue working in the addiction field — or serving on the Board of Alders. 

“He shouldn’t be in a role of leadership. He’s just gonna take advantage of people like that,” he said.

In addition to serving on the Board of Alders, Hurt has organized with New Haven Rising, a group affiliated with the Unite Here unions that has pushed for Yale to hire locally and contribute more funding to the city. 

He has also played a leadership role in his church, Pentecostal Deliverance Temple Church, which has an active Facebook page identifying Hurt as its ​“main Elder.” 

In a 2021 interview with the Yale Daily News, Hurt outlined his role building up the affiliated Deliverance Temple Outreach House in his ward. He said that sometimes over 20 people in need of shelter would live at the Outreach House. Clients there received at least 90 days of shelter, meals, employment guidance, and thrice-daily Bible study programming, Hurt said in the interview. He said he led programming there without receiving a salary. The house is now vacant and under renovation.

Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers said that she had heard rumors about Hurt’s conduct, but nothing confirmed enough to ignite a disciplinary proceeding. Walker-Myers did grant Hurt several weeks of time off in November and December of 2023 after he requested a break for ​“personal reasons.”

“I’ve never heard from a victim. I’ve never heard from Retreat,” she said. ​“If I heard from any of those entities,” she said, Board of Alders leadership would ​“go through the process” outlined by the city charter to address allegations of ethical violations — enlisting the Board of Ethics and, if misconduct is determined, the Aldermanic Affairs Committee.

Campion, of the Connecticut Association of Addiction Professionals, urged anyone struggling with addiction to seek out treatment. ​“We have strong, informed, compassionate, dedicated providers,” she said. ​“This is about saving your life.”

According to Campion, the life-and-death stakes of a possible relapse are exactly why patient-provider relationships can be dangerous. 

“One of the overriding factors of people not being able to stay sober is the internal sense of shame caused by trauma,” she said. ​“When we’re so vulnerable and somebody reaches out to us, it’s a setup, really, for pain.” 

If you are struggling with substance use, you are not alone. Local and national resources are available at https://connectgnh.org/. The Never Use Alone hotline is 1 – 800-484‑3731.

The RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline offers resources on sexual conduct by therapy providers. To connect with a trained listener in English or Spanish, you can chat online here or call 1 – 800-656-HOPE (4673).