Case OverviewCase TitleDEWITT COURTNEY LCharge (First)FORGERY/ISSUE/DELIVER DOCUMENT
Case #2018CF000415NameDEWITT COURTNEY LCase TypeCriminal FelonyJudgeHON JODY GLEASONCourtRoomROOM 114AAddress807 W JOHNYORKVILLE, IL 60560Show MapStatusPre-trial
Amount OwedParticipant TypeDefendant$.00Next/Last Court Date08/27/2019 at 1:00 PM
Hear CPA (and former NYPD Lieutenant) Craig Cody interview David Harris on his podcast HERE.
Learn from the Experts!
Did you know that there are some topics that we will ONLY discuss at closed-door, live events?
Hear about how Prosperident’s Mindy Salzman caught Colorado’s Layla Masset embezzling.
See us live if you want the full story on embezzlement.
Here are some places where we will be speaking soon:
Sep 5
Edison Lakes Oral Surgery, Mishawaka IN
Sep 12
Dr. Maheeb Jaouni Study Club, Dallas, TX
Sep 14
Orthopreneurs Summit, Dallas TX
Sep 19
Dr. Brad Crump Study Club, Dallas TX
Sep 21
Dr. Tommy Murph Dallas Dental Symposium, Dallas TX
Sep 27
ADSO Partnering for Growth, Orlando FL
Sep 27
BEST for Dentistry Summit, Portland OR
Oct 7
Colorado Prosthodontic Society, Denver CO
Oct 18
Drs. Savage, Sabol & Visser, Virginia Beach VA
Oct 24
Panoramic Study Club, Toronto ON
Nov 11
Thunderbird Study Club, El Paso TX
Nov 19
Memphis Dental Society, Memphis TN
2020
Feb 27
Ortho2 User Group Meeting, San Diego CA
Apr 24
East Texas Study Club, Bullard TX
To book us for your meeting or study club, click HERE or call us at 888-398-2327.
Did you miss a previous newsletter? We archive them HERE.
How do Serial Embezzlers Get Hired?
This is Unique Wells, although she has used other names. She is currently looking for work in Nevada and Arizona. She has a lengthy criminal record, and several former employers report missing money. You can read about Unique in our Hall of Shame HERE.
Also, you can see her resume, and learn to spot some red flags from it HERE.
This Month’s Question
I just hired someone and then got notice that their wages are garnished. Should I fire them?
It isn’t necessarily an issue, but requires a bit more investigation.
Garnishees can come from a lot of different things — unpaid parking tickets might be an example of something causing a garnishee where there might not be an employment implication. It could also be a financial dispute with an ex-spouse. It could also be an unpaid fine for a criminal conviction, which is obviously more concerning.
It is important for the dentist to understand WHY the employee’s wages are being seized,
As I write this at the end of August, kids are back to school or about to be, and Labor Day is rushing at us. Summer, that pleasant interruption to our regular routines, is almost over.
So for most of us, this time of the year is one where we turn our focus back to our business.
We had a fairly busy summer at Prosperident. In June we brought our entire team to our head office for meetings, and in August we celebrated our 30th anniversary in business.
And lighter clinical schedules allowed more than a few dentists the time to give us a call to discuss concerns about their practices.
I hope that you aren’t in that position, but if you are, we are always available to listen, and to offer our knowledge and experience without judgement. The ways to reach us are HERE.
It’s been an honor and a privilege to have been a trusted advisor to the dental profession for the past three decades, and my team and I very much look forward to serving you in future.
David Harris
We are Prosperident, Dentistry’s Embezzlement Experts
Cheryl Dunlap, the woman charged with embezzling more than $250,000 from a local orthodontist while employed there, was sentenced to 15 years of probation and to repay $252,087 but received no prison sentence. Dunlap, 46, worked as a bookkeeper for John Traul Orthodontics in Glenwood Springs for 10 years.
She is accused of writing 111 bogus company checks to herself totaling $252,087.62 between April 1999 and February 2004, the arrest affidavit said. Traul first discovered money was missing from his business in March when he was notified by his accountant that Dunlap was suspected of cashing an unauthorized check against one of the business accounts.”Traul stated that there were several checks signed by Dunlap, and there were also several checks that had been deposited but were not signed,” the affidavit said. Dunlap also might have used a signature stamp to forge some of the checks, the affidavit said. The affidavit said Dunlap admitted to police that she stole the money and she wanted to “make it right.”Dunlap told officers, “Everyone knows that I’m guilty, I did it and that it is time that I admit to it,” according to the affidavit. Traul’s orthodontics business has offices in Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Basalt and Rifle.
If Dunlap is convicted on both charges, she could face 5 to 15 years in prison.
Have questions or concerns? Call us toll-free at 888-398-2327 or click the button below.
A former office manager in the dental clinic at 572-bed Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center was sentenced to one to three years in prison for embezzling more than $200,000 during a six-year period. Denise Rossi, 45, also was ordered to pay the hospital $100,000 in restitution.
A tip from another employee first alerted hospital administrators, who conducted a full-scale investigation before turning over their findings to the district attorney, a hospital spokesman said. Rossi, who had check-signing authority, took money paid by patients and insurance companies for dental services. Prosecutors said she used the money for credit card, car insurance and cable bills and car payments, and spent $3,000 to landscape her home. “We’re certainly glad an employee spoke up about this matter. That enabled us to look closely into it,” the spokesman said.
Have questions or concerns? Call us toll-free at 888-398-2327 or click the button below.
RANGELEY – A federal judge sentenced a Madrid Township bookkeeper Friday to one-year in prison for engaging in a health-care fraud scheme to embezzle nearly $73,000 from her employer.
Lori A. Savage, 34,
the former office manager of Dr. David McMillan’s Rangeley Family
Dentistry, was also ordered to pay $72,956.81 in restitution to the
dental clinic and to serve two years of supervised release after her
prison term.
Savage diverted funds to pay her own credit card bills and other expenses, according to court records.
She faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
United
States Attorney Paula D. Silsby stated in a release that Savage
received a more lengthy sentence because Savage was found to have abused
a position of private trust and to have used special skill in carrying
out the fraud scheme.
Savage who was paid $13 an hour by
McMillan, also owned her own bookkeeping service and had used some of
the money to buy “very expensive, top of the line computer equipment.”
Court records show that between Feb. 1, 2000 and Oct. 29, 2002, Savage was the officer manager of the clinic.
Without
the authority of her employer Savage prepared and executed 85 checks
from the Franklin Savings Bank account of Rangeley Family Dentistry for
her own personal use in paying credit card bills an other expenses in
her name or the name of a family member.
Savage also made false
entries into the clinic’s computerized ledger to conceal the scheme by
entering payees and items into the ledger that had never been approved
by Dr. McMillan.
Savage also used McMillan’s stamp signature on the checks without the dentist’s permission.
The
case came to light in November 2002 after McMillan noticed a $1,000
discrepancy in payment to a supplier recorded in his computerized
records.
McMillan brought in his accountant to do an audit.
In
2000, the accountant found that 37 checks were paid to four different
credit accounts that did not belong to McMillan: Fashion Bug, Capital
One, Universal Card and First Card.
The payments were recorded in
McMillan’s office computer system as expenditures for lab and office
supplies, an affidavit stated.
Silbsy stated in her release that her hope is that the one-year sentence would serve as a deterrent to others who manage clinics and offices for health care professionals in Maine.
Have questions or concerns? Call us toll-free at 888-398-2327 or click the button below.
PASO ROBLES, Calif. – Paso Robles police arrested two people involved in counterfeiting pharmacy prescriptions on Monday morning in Paso Robles.
The Paso Robles Police Department responded to a
Rite Aid Pharmacy on the 1100 block of Creston Road regarding
fraudulent prescriptions.
The
pharmacist reported a suspicious trend from a patient named Robert
McDaniel who had picked up several prescriptions of painkillers over the
past two months.
The prescriptions were made out to different names but all stemmed from one dentist office.
The
pharmacist called the prescribing dentist office but each time the
receptionist gave an excuse why the dentist could not speak on the
phone.
The pharmacist then refused to fill any more prescriptions until she spoke directly with the dentist.
Officers responded to the dentist office where they contacted an employee Anacristina McDaniel,29, of Shandon and her husband Robert McDaniel, 31, of Shandon.
Have questions or concerns? Call us toll-free at 888-398-2327 or click the button below.
It continues to amaze us that the people who we refer to as “serial embezzlers” continue to find jobs in dental practices. One skill that dentists, and others involved in the hiring process, seem to lack is the ability to read resumes critically.
Here is the 2019 resume of one serial embezzler. She has used different names at various times including Unique Wells and Unique Edmond. She has a lengthy criminal record, and her own page in our Hall of Shame — https://www.prosperident.com/hiring-alert-nevada/.
Click the button below to have a look at her resume.
So let’s take a forensic look at her resume and the attached reference letter. A few things pop out:
Work experience on the resume is limited to two corporately-owned dental practices. Many practice owners do not bother checking references, and thieves know that there is a bit more work involved in obtaining a reference from a large organization like a university or DSO than a solo practice. Embezzlers know that listing large organizations is enough to deter prospective employers from reference checking.
Her statement that she is willing to relocate for a job anywhere in the US is a bit overeager for the dental office manager or financial coordinator jobs for which she is applying.
The “some college” she has listed for education is concerningly vague. Most employers would expect to see which college, years attended, program studied, etc. on a resume. It looks like Unique is trying hard to give as little past information as possible.
On the subject of vagueness, Unique lists no home address for herself.
Of course, she is not specific about which Henderson, NV Pacific Dental office she works in. There are actually four offices. She would not want you to call that office only to find out that she does not work there.
We tell practice owners to place no value whatsoever in written job references because they are easy to forge. There are several clues that this reference letter is not real.
The reference letter is not on letterhead. Even if it were, that would provide no validation; letterhead is easy to forge. However, the fact that this letter is not on letterhead, and is signed using a “script” font from a word processor, creates strong questions about its credibility.
Google searching suggests that the consultant, Kara Stevenson, and her company, do not exist.
The phone number listed for Kara Stevenson was answered by Unique when we called.
When reading the reference letter, one should be wondering in what context a consultant would be in a position to observe Unique’s work when her experience is limited to two DSOs. Most DSOs do not employ in-office consultants.
The lavish praise heaped on Unique seem inconsistent with the insurance coordinator position that she claims to have held for the past nine years. According to the consultant, Unique pretty much walks on water. If she really had the attributes “like an in-house consultant,” “110% loyalty,” and an “ownership mentality,” and was working for a DSO, and was willing to relocate, Pacific Dental Services (with over 700 offices, and growing by 80 per year) would have certainly promoted her by now, probably more than once.
We recently were provided with another resume that was used by someone using the name Marie Edmond. You may notice that the phone number, and much of the text is identical to that used by Unique. Click the button below for a look.
Hiring is a challenging process. It is difficult to find the right person, particularly in a booming economy with a labor shortage. In this all-consuming process, it is easy to lose the skepticism that needs to be there. To make a clumsy pun, Unique is not unique. Many resumes have false, misleading, or incomplete information. Many applicants have attributes that they want to hide from you. We can never forget to question the completeness, internal consistency, and reasonableness of a resume.
To watch a webinar on how to prevent people with “baggage” from getting jobs in your practice, click on the button below.
KEENE — A North Walpole woman is accused of stealing thousands of dollars from a local dentist.
Eileen
Fletcher, 28, of 8 Taylor St., North Walpole, is facing up to 15 years
in prison on felony charges of theft by unauthorized taking. Fletcher
was recently indicted by a grand jury convened in the Cheshire Superior
Court.
She is accused of taking
payments made to Keene Dentistry and Implants in 2018 while she was an
employee there, keeping the money for herself instead of depositing it
into the business accounts, according to the indictments.
Fletcher
is accused of taking between $1,000 and $1,500 from the business in
August, less than $1,000 in October and more than $1,500 in November.
She
is charged with class B felony theft by unauthorized taking for August,
class A misdemeanor theft by unauthorized taking for October and class A
felony theft by unauthorized taking for November.
She was also charged with an additional count of class A theft by unauthorized taking for all three months.
Class A felonies carry a possible prison sentence of up to 15 years if convicted.
Fletcher is due in court next week to be arraigned on the charges.
Have questions or concerns? Call us toll-free at 888-398-2327 or click the button below.
