Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced the sentencing of former dentist Seyed Hamid Tofigh, 57, of Potomac, Maryland, after The Honorable Carol Ann Corderre of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County found Tofigh to have violated the terms of his probation from a home-detention sentence imposed in February of this year.
Tofigh will now spend 18 months in jail. “People who knowingly break the law over cannot avoid the consequences," said Attorney General Brown. “This former dentist had already put his young patients at risk and was trying to return to practicing dentistry again without a license, which would have put the public in danger. I'm glad the Court acted because this behavior can't be allowed. If you break the law, you will face the consequences every time.” On February 6, 2024, Tofigh pleaded guilty to one count of Defrauding a State Health Plan, for stealing more than $8.5 million dollars from the Medicaid program, and one count of Practicing Dentistry Without a License. Tofigh’s conviction arose from a fraud scheme in which he practiced unlicensed dentistry on Medicaid recipients, almost exclusively children, using the names, provider numbers, and professional credentials of licensed dentists to submit claims for payment. He was originally sentenced to 18-months of home detention, with his remaining 3.5 years suspended, and 5 years’ probation. Under the terms of his probation, Tofigh was prohibited from providing health care services. However, while Tofigh was on home detention, he almost immediately began to apply for dentistry positions at practices in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC, using an altered dental license. He never disclosed his criminal convictions or any of the actions taken by the Maryland State Board of Dental Examiners. Tofigh also applied for a license to practice dentistry in Washington, DC, using an altered report from the National Practitioners Database (NPDB) that indicated that he did not have a criminal conviction and that no action had ever been taken against his professional license.
Judge Corderre also found that Tofigh violated his probation by leaving his home without approval from the home detention monitoring company, traveling to unapproved locations, and failing to provide verification for his time out of the home. In making today’s announcement, Attorney General Brown thanked Assistant Attorneys General Catherine Schuster Pascale and James M.C. McHale, and Senior Investigative Auditor Todd Sheffer, Senior Fraud Analyst Shannon Beatty, Fraud Analyst Gordon Carew, and Senior Fraud Analyst Paul Kidd of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit for their work on this case. Attorney General Brown also thanked the Office of Inspector General, Health and Human Services Special Agent in Charge Maureen Dixon, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Andre Jacobs, and Special Agent Jamila Shelton and the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations – Baltimore. The Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $6,057,128 for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2024. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $2,019,042 for FY 2024, is funded by the State of Maryland.
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