NEW YORK (WHDH) - A Massachusetts doctor is facing criminal charges after officials say he was recently arrested in New York and caught with a massive cache of guns, ammunition, and body armor, among an array of other weapons.
Dr. Matthew J. Bonanno’s medical license was suspended Tuesday when the Massachusetts Board of Medicine gathered for an emergency meeting and deemed him “an immediate and serious threat” to the public’s health, safety, and welfare following his arrest in New York for illegally possessing a semi-automatic firearm.
The Tuckahoe Police Department says Bonanno’s arrest on Aug. 12 stems from an investigation into a report that he made threats against his estranged wife, a local resident, and her family.
Officers tracked him to Growler’s Beer Bistro, where he was allegedly found to be in possession of a loaded Glock handgun.
A subsequent search of the 47-year-old’s car yielded five loaded assault rifles with high-capacity magazines, 1,600 rounds of ammunition, three handguns, 29 high-capacity loaded magazines, a stun gun, handcuffs, face masks, smoke grenades, military knives, brass knuckles, pepper spray fogger, scopes, binoculars, a ballistic helmet, and heavy ballistic body armor, officials said.
More assault rifles, handguns, high-capacity magazines, and a shotgun were later found during a raid on Bonanno’s home in Great Neck.
Bonanno has since been arraigned in Tuckahoe Village Court on several counts of criminal possession of weapons charges.
He was first licensed to practice medicine in Massachusetts in March, according to a state official. He had been practicing plastic surgery in Lake Success, New York.
No additional information was immediately available.
An investigation is ongoing.
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