Psychiatrist with NYU Langone charged with drug possession, cops say

A psychiatrist at  NYU Langone Health was charged with 12 counts of drug possession Monday after Nassau County police said officers spotted him apparently smoking crystal methamphetamine in his 2016 Volkswagen Jetta.

Police found two fentanyl patches, drug paraphernalia and hundreds of pills, including methadone, amphetamine and Xanax, in Thomas Boes’ vehicle before arresting him Sunday in a Westbury parking lot, according to a felony complaint.

Boes, 42, of New Hyde Park, was ordered held on $100,000 cash bail or $200,000 bond during his arraignment Monday in First District Court — figures his attorney, Thomas Liotti of Garden City, criticized as excessive.

Liotti said Boes is a distinguished physician who is board certified in neurology and psychiatry and had the authority to prescribe some of the drugs police say they found in his possession. The only mark on his criminal record is a 20-year-old drug misdemeanor.

“This bail is totally inappropriate for this defendant,” Liotti said after Boes’ arraignment.

In a statement emailed Monday, NYU Langone spokeswoman Kate Malenczak said Boes had been suspended without pay. “We will be following the legal proceedings,”  she said.

Boes is the son of former Westbury deputy mayor and trustee Joan Boes, and Liotti said Boes has struggled with grief ever since her death in August. Boes had  battled substance abuse in the past and, although he had been in recovery for many years, his mother’s death sparked a relapse Liotti said.

Boes’ father, attorney Lawrence Boes, said his son used methadone to treat opioid addiction.

“I’m very proud of him,” Lawrence Boes said after Monday’s arraignment. “He had some problems and I hoped he had recovered from them. But he took his mother’s death very hard.”

 Police said officers from the Nassau Bureau of Special Operations saw Boes sitting in the driver’s seat of the Jetta, holding a glass pipe to his mouth in one hand and a butane torch lighter in the other.

“Please, this is going to hurt me. I’m a physician, you can check my ID, it’s in my bag,” Boes allegedly told police.

With Nicole Fuller