A Northwest D.C. dentist was sentenced Thursday, Sept. 17, to two years in federal prison for defrauding D.C. Medicaid of $3.4 million.

Steven A. Price, 70, ran the Washington Smile Center. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta also ordered Price to pay $3.4 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

Federal prosecutors had asked for a nine-year sentence. The court imposed two years. No public explanation for the difference appeared in the sentencing announcement.

"Mr. Price is going to prison and is ordered to pay $3.4 million in restitution," U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement. "The days when individuals could hide behind complex billing schemes to steal from the American taxpayer are over."

A federal jury convicted Price in March after a six-week trial, finding him guilty on 21 counts of conspiracy, health care fraud, false statements and wire fraud. Jurors deliberated for more than a week before returning the verdict, according to the D.C. Office of Inspector General.

The scheme

Price and his codefendant, dental hygienist Keidi C. Moore, 40, billed D.C. Medicaid for clinical crown lengthening procedures and space maintainers that patients never received, federal prosecutors said. The scheme ran from January 2017 through March 2022. Many of the patients were elderly or disabled.

Some patients were billed for more than 30 crown lengthening procedures and more than 20 space maintainers during that five-year span. The false billing stopped as soon as D.C. Medicaid added a pre-authorization requirement for crown lengthening.

Moore, who lived in Temple Hills, Maryland, at the time of the March conviction, was also found guilty.

What's next

Moore is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 23.

The FBI's Washington Field Office, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the D.C. Inspector General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Diane Lucas and Sarah Ranney prosecuted it.

No statement from Price's defense attorney appeared in public records as of the sentencing announcement. It is not clear from available records whether the Washington Smile Center remains open.