WASHINGTON – Mahsa Azimirad, the former office manager of Universal Smiles, a Washington, DC-based dental practice, was sentenced today to 12 months in prison on a federal charge of healthcare fraud resulting from ‘a scheme in which she was paid over $ 813,000 by defrauding the District of Columbia’s Medicaid program.

The announcement was made by Acting US Attorney Channing D. Phillips; Wayne A. Jacobs, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Washington Field Office, Criminal Division; Maureen R. Dixon, special agent in charge of the office of the inspector general of the United States Department of Health and Human Services for the region which includes Washington, DC, and Daniel W. Lucas, inspector general for the District of Columbia.

Azimirad, 41, of Rockville, Md., Was charged in January 2019, along with Bilal Ahmed, the dentist who ran the dental office. She pleaded guilty in May 2021 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was condemned by the Honorable Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. At the end of his prison term, Azimirad will be placed on probation for three years. The court issued a forfeiture judgment of $ 813,184 and also ordered him to pay $ 813,184 in restitution.

According to the statement of offense submitted to the court and admitted by Azimirad, she was the director of marketing and operations for Universal Smiles, a dental practice in northwest Washington state. Through Universal Smiles, she and Ahmed embarked on a Get Rich By Defrauding DC Medicaid program, a health care benefits program jointly funded by the federal government and the District of Columbia to provide health services to residents. who meet the income requirements. As part of the program, Ahmed applied to be a Medicaid provider. Once approved to bill Medicaid, Azimirad and Ahmed then billed DC Medicaid for thousands of interim crowns, a significant number of which were not provided to Medicaid patients. From August 9, 2012 to February 26, 2014, DC Medicaid paid Universal Smiles approximately $ 5.4 million for temporary crowns. Of the $ 5.4 million DC Medicaid paid for the provisional crowns, Azimirad received approximately $ 813,184.

In a related case, Ahmed, 49, pleaded guilty in 2017 to sexually assaulting five former dental patients and a former employee and inappropriately touching another former employee. The victims were attacked in separate incidents between 2010 and 2014. He was sentenced to 16.5 years in prison for these offenses and is serving a concurrent sentence after pleading guilty in 2019 to a federal charge of healthcare fraud health in this matter.

In announcing the sentence, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillips, Special Agent in Charge Jacobs, Special Agent in Charge Dixon and Inspector General Lucas praised the work of those who investigated the case from the Field Office of the FBI in Washington, US Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Inspector General and the Office of the Inspector General for the District of Columbia. They also expressed appreciation for the work of paralegal specialist Chad Byron and forensic financial analyst Bryan Snitselaar. Finally, they praised the work of Criminal Division Attorney Gary Winters, Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Jackson, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Miller, and former Assistant U.S. Attorneys Denise A. Simmonds, Michelle Bradford and Lionel André, who sued the ‘case.

The FBI, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Office of the Inspector General of the District of Columbia, and the United States Attorney’s Office se are committed to investigating and prosecuting those who defrauded the DC Medicaid program. The government relies on the public for advice and help to help end health care fraud. If you have information on individuals committing healthcare fraud, please call the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General hotline at (800) HHS-TIPS[(800)447-8477[(800)447-8477[(800)447-8477[(800)447-8477