Dentist still has license despite convictions
Gilberto Nunez was acquitted of murder in June but found guilty of two other felony charges.
Gilberto Nunez, the Kingston dentist acquitted of killing his former lover’s husband, remains licensed to practice despite being convicted in June of two felonies counts of possession of a forged instrument.
According to the state Department of Education, which is responsible for licensing all profes- sionals in New York, conviction of a crime is considered to be professional misconduct for which disciplinary action can be taken.
Jonathan Burman, a department spokesman, said the department is aware of Nunez’s convictions but that no disciplinary action has been taken.
Burman declined to comment about any actions that may or may not be pending, citing confidentially requirements.
“By law, an individual accused of professional misconduct is afforded due process rights before the state may take disciplinary action against him or her,” he wrote in an email.
Burman said that “all criminal convictions are deemed ‘professional misconduct’ and are prosecuted” by the department’s Office of Professional Discipline.”
But there is no time frame in which the department must take action, he said.
Nunez was found not guilty of murder on June 14 in the November 2011 death of Thomas Kolman, 44, whose wife Linda was having an affair with Nunez. Kolman was found dead in his vehicle at a plaza in the town of Ulster, and prosecutors alleged Nunez poisoned him with a dental sedative so that he could have Mrs. Kolman to himself. The defense said Nunez and Kolman were best friends and that the dentist had nothing to do with the man’s death.
While acquitted of the murder, Nunez was convicted of two counts of possession of a forged instrument for having a fake CIA identification badge on his computer and for giving Linda Kolman a letter purporting to be from the CIA.
Nunez is scheduled to stand trial next month on felony counts of falsifying business records, grand larceny and insurance fraud in connection with an allegedly fraudulent $8,400 insurance claim he filed in connection with a fire in a building he owned at 381 Washington Ave. in Kingston, next to his dental office.
He also is to stand trial in November for perjury, offering a false instrument for filing and making an apparently sworn false statement in connection to allegedly filing false information while applying for a pistol permit.