Nunez, acquitted of murder, now faces fraud charges

A Kingston dentist who was acquitted of murder this summer is expected back in court later this month to stand trial on insurance fraud charges.

Gilberto Nunez, 49, is charged with a single count of third-degree grand larceny, one count of insurance fraud and five counts of falsifying business records, all felonies. Prosecutors say Nunez submitted inflated insurance claims following a February 2014 fire at a property adjacent to his office at 389 Washington Ave. in Kingston. An indictment alleges that the phony insurance claim amounted to $8,400. The alleged fraud involved a portion of a larger, undisputed, damage claim in which Nunez claimed lost rent for a first-floor tenant.

Nunez was indicted on the charges back in April 2015, six months before he was indicted on second-degree murder charges in the November 2011 death of his onetime friend and neighbor Thomas Kolman Jr. Prosecutors argued in court that Nunez poisoned Kolman using a powerful medical sedative during a predawn meeting in a Town of Ulster Parking lot. At the time, Nunez was having an affair with Kolman’s wife and prosecutors argued that he killed Kolman to eliminate his rival. A jury disagreed — in June, Nunez was acquitted on the murder charge. He was, however, convicted of two felony counts of forgery based on allegations that he created phony Central Intelligence Agency documents as part of a bizarre plot to break up Kolman and his wife.

Nunez also faces a third trial, scheduled for November on perjury charges. Like the insurance fraud allegations, prosecutors sought the indictment in the months before Nunez was indicted for Kolman’s murder. The charge alleges that Nunez lied on an application for a pistol permit when answered “no” to a question of whether he had ever been fired from a job or discharged from the military “for cause.” In the 1980s, Nunez was accused of deserting from the Marine Corps and received an “other than honorable discharge.” Nunez’s attorneys say that the mistake was inadvertent because the question was vaguely worded and recipients of other-than-honorable discharges from military service, unlike those who have been discharged dishonorably, are not barred from owning firearms.

Following Nunez acquittal, County Court Judge Donald Williams told his defense team that the dentist would be sentenced following the conclusion of the two pending charges. Williams also told the attorney’s that they could expect to go to trial with both cases because, the judge said, “there will be no plea deals.”