FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 16, 2004

BRONX DENTIST PLEADS GUILTY IN U.S. COURT TO SUBMITTING FRAUDULENT CLAIMS FOR PERIODONTAL TREATMENT

DAVID N. KELLEY, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and PASQUALE D’AMURO, the Assistant Director In Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation (“FBI”), announced that LAWRENCE WHITE, a dentist in the Bronx, pled guilty in Manhattan federal court today to one count of health care fraud and one count of false statements relating to health care matters.

According to the Indictment and an earlier criminal Compliant against WHITE, between July 1997 and October 2003, WHITE submitted numerous false claims for reimbursement to several private insurance companies for a dental procedure known as periodontal scaling and root planing (“PSRPs”). According to the charges, PSRP is a treatment for individuals who suffer from periodontal disease, a condition marked by inflammation of the gums, detachment of the gums from the tooth, and bone loss. In a PSRP procedure, which is typically performed on only one quadrant, or quarter, of the mouth at a time, a dentist uses dental instruments to remove plaque and calculus, according to the charges. Also according to the charges, due to the difficulty of the procedure and the pain associated with it, dentists typically perform PSRP on no more than two quadrants of the mouth in a single patient visit.

In pleading guilty before United States District Judge JOHN G. KOELTL, WHITE admitted that he had submitted claims to insurance companies that contained materially false information that PSRPs had been performed on patients of his, and that he did so in order to obtain reimbursements to which he was not entitled. Among the several insurance companies WHITE defrauded in this scheme were Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, Aetna, Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield and GE Group Life, according to the charges. As part of his plea, WHITE has agreed to make restitution to the victims in this case in the total amount of $212,056.

WHITE was indicted in late April 2004 and charged with one count of health care fraud and 18 separate counts of false statements in connection with health care matters. According to the charges, WHITE submitted numerous phony claims for PSRP procedures, many of which were for PSRPs performed on all four quadrants of a patient’s mouth in a single visit to WHITE’s office. The Complaint against WHITE alleged that the FBI had conducted interviews of more than 20 of WHITE’s patients for whom WHITE claimed payment for PSRP procedures and that those patients stated that they never had the procedure performed in any of their visits to WHITE’s office.

WHITE, age 50, resides in Fort Lee, New Jersey. On the health care fraud count, WHITE faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and on the false statements count to which he pled, WHITE faces a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison.

Judge KOELTL scheduled WHITE’s sentencing for October 22, 2004.

Mr. KELLEY praised the investigative efforts of the FBI in this case.

Assistant United States Attorney JONATHAN ABERNETHY is in charge of the prosecution.