By Staff
A dentist who operated dental clinics in Evergreen and Fort Deposit pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of attempting to defraud the Alabama Medicaid Agency, a class A misdemeanor.
Attorney General Troy King announced that Robert Pierre Antoine Louis, 57, of Spanish Fort, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Circuit Court to three counts of attempting to defraud the Alabama Medicaid Agency, a class A misdemeanor. Louis previously operated dental clinics in Fort Deposit and Evergreen and also served patients from Brewton.
An investigation conducted by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit determined that, in the fall of 2008, Louis approached administrators at schools in Butler, Lowndes and Conecuh Counties and offered to perform free dental screenings. Louis subsequently billed the Medicaid Agency for services performed at the screenings. Officials with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit alleged that Louis had not performed the services for which he billed or that the services that he performed were not eligible for reimbursement.  The Medicaid Agency withheld payments to Louis after the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit alerted them to these activities, and so the agency did not suffer a loss.
Judge Truman Hobbs sentenced Louis to one year imprisonment on each count, to run consecutively. Hobbs suspended the sentence and placed Louis on a total of six years probation. As part of the plea agreement, Louis surrendered his license to practice dentistry and will be barred for life for reapplying for a dental license in Alabama.
The case was investigated by Special Agent Timothy Kornegay and Senior Special Agent Gerald Shockley of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and was prosecuted by the Unit’s director, Assistant Attorney General Bruce Lieberman.