The psychiatrist who had treated Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza surrendered his license after being investigated for an inappropriate relationship with a female patient.
According to documents from the state Department of Public Health obtained Monday, Dr. Paul Fox, who had a private practice in Brookfield, was questioned about his relationship with the woman in July 2012. Shortly after, he voluntarily surrendered his license and has since moved to New Zealand.
A lengthy State Police report released on Friday showed Fox was Lanza's primary psychiatrist during his adolescence. Fox is quoted in the report as saying he hadn't seen Lanza since he was 15, about five years before Lanza killed his mother, then 20 first-graders and six adults at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown before taking his own life.
Fox told investigators in the report he destroyed his records on Lanza, a move psychiatrists are permitted to do with files after five years.
The Department of Public Health report states that Fox began treating the woman with whom he had a relationship in May 2010. The patient, who isn't a minor, claimed she and Fox had a "personal consensual sexual relationship for more than one year." The relationship came to light during a psychological assessment with the woman's primary doctor at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
The patient said she and Fox had "sexual encounters" in his office, went out to eat together and spent time together on Fox's personal sailboat. She also claimed that, while hospitalized elsewhere, she met "another girl" who said she was having phone sex with Fox.
The state Department of Public Health report included email messages from the patient to her mother in which the relationship with Fox was discussed. It also included billing information showing Fox sent the woman 212 text messages between April 26, 2011 and May 25, 2011. Between October 26 and 28, 2011, Fox sent another 36 text messages.
There were also 42 phone calls between Fox and the patient during that time, the longest of which was 49 minutes. Other documents supporting the relationship included two letters reportedly from Fox to the patient, two Facebook dialogues sent by the patient, 29 emails from Fox to the patient, and two poems reportedly given to Fox by the patient.
These documents were not released by the health department. Among the 19 supporting documents were medical records from Western Connecticut State University in Danbury and Danbury Hospital. Calls to the head of psychiatry at the hospital were not returned Monday.
Records from state Superior Court in Danbury indicate that Judge Heidi Winslow granted Fox and his wife, Faline Schneiderman, of New Fairfield, were granted an uncontested divorce in June 2012.
The couple, who were married in Sherman in April 1988, have two children, a daughter, 23, and a son, 20.
Schneiderman brought the action six months earlier, citing "irretrievable breakdown," according to the court file.
Fox's case did not come before the Connecticut Medical Examining Board for a public hearing. Instead, Fox and his attorney brokered a deal with the state Department of Public Health's Healthcare Quality and Safety branch and the psychiatrist surrendered his license in Connecticut and New York.
Dr. Harold I. Schwartz, a member of the 16-member Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, a panel of experts appointed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to make recommendations regarding school safety, mental health and gun violence prevention in the wake of the Dec. 14, 2012 shootings, said it was impossible from the available information to say whether Lanza received proper mental health care from Fox.
"There is nothing in the state police report that tells me anything of substance about the kind of care (he) was receiving," Schwartz said Monday.
Schwartz is the psychiatrist-in-chief at Hartford Hospital's Institute of Living, vice president of Behavioral Health at Hartford Hospital and professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.
"There are no conclusions of any kind that I can draw," Schwartz said.
Staff writer Ken Dixon contributed to this report.