The Journal News (Westchester County, NY)

March 11, 2003 Tuesday

Doctor sent to prison for lying

BYLINE: Timothy O’Connor, Staff

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1B

LENGTH: 401 words

Physician incorrectly stated his credentials in federal lawsuit
Timothy O’Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS – A federal judge yesterday sentenced the former director of emergency services for Westchester Medical Center’s psychiatric unit to nine months in prison for lying under oath during a Rockland-based civil suit last year.
Dr. Faidherbe Ceus, 52, pleaded guilty to perjury Dec. 10 for giving sworn testimony in a federal civil suit in which he said he was board-certified in psychiatry. Ceus, who has a practice in Haverstraw, is not board-certified. He was an attending psychiatrist at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla for three years before he was indicted in October. He oversaw a six-bed unit in the hospital’s 107-bed behavioral center.
Ceus’ perjury came in a deposition that was part of a civil trial filed by Frank Olivier, a former correction officer at the Rockland County jail. Olivier was Ceus’ patient. Ceus was not a party to the suit.
Yesterday, Ceus’ lawyer, Kerry Lawrence, asked U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant to go along with a recommendation of the federal probation department and sentence Ceus to six months of house arrest and two years’ probation.
“His professional life has been destroyed by this prosecution,” Lawrence wrote in a letter to the judge. “Incarceration of Dr. Ceus will not result in any tangible benefit to the community at large.”
Lawrence submitted letters from Ceus’ former co-workers at the medical center who portrayed him as a compassionate, gifted physician.
“I have been an R.N. for over thirty years, for most of that time I practiced in the psychiatric field,” wrote Janemarie Owen, a registered nurse at the hospital. “I would trust Dr. Ceus with the welfare of any member of my family. That is the highest praise a nurse can give any physician.”
Ceus apologized for his crime.
“I made a mistake. It’s a mistake of pride,” he said. “I am a very, very good physician.”
Lawrence said he had tried in vain to get the U.S. Attorney’s Office to drop or reduce the criminal prosecution.
“He wasn’t doing this to hurt anybody,” Lawrence said of his client.
Brieant was unmoved. He said the crime was a serious one that “obstructs the fact-finding process of the court.”
“Just because Bill Clinton can do it,” Brieant said, “doesn’t mean he can.”