An Alaska Dentist Who Extracted A Patient's Tooth On A Hoverboard Sentenced To 12 Years In Jail

Seth Lookhart, 35, was convicted on 46 felony and misdemeanor counts in January, along with medical assist fraud, scheme to defraud, illegal comply with of dentistry and reckless endangerment.

Anchorage Superior Court docket docket Select Michael Wolverton sentenced Lookhart on Monday to serve 20 years in jail with eight years suspended, the assertion acknowledged. Which implies Lookhart will serve 12 years behind bars. He moreover can’t comply with dentistry all through his 10 years of probation.

Lookhart apologized for his actions whereas finding out from a prepared assertion.

“Wanting once more, I can’t say exactly after I began to go off track,” he acknowledged, CNN affiliate KTUU reported. “Whereas I do not doubt that I was able to render care and alleviate the ache to many people who’ve been in dire need, I moreover know that I may need and may have maintained larger self-discipline and focus whereas serving a affected individual base I obtained right here to love.”

He moreover acknowledged he had modified, and requested the courtroom docket to rethink.

“I do know I might be my best self and in flip able to serve my family and the group best if I’ve been granted the privilege and the hope of a renewed lease on life, practising dentistry and dwelling amongst individuals who I like,” Lookhart acknowledged.

On the sentencing, Select Wolverton acknowledged, “I really feel what you in all probability did was so outrageous, narcissistic and crazy. So I forgive you for all that, nevertheless there’s clearly a high-priced lesson that you will have to be taught.”

At Lookhart’s trial earlier this 12 months, Wolverton called the evidence in the direction of him “merely overwhelming,” together with that it was “often supported, and generally in excruciating component, by Lookhart’s private texts, photos and flicks.”

Hoverboard incident was merely one amongst part of the case

A lawsuit filed by the state in 2017 charged Lookhart with “unlawful dental acts,” saying his affected individual care did not meet expert necessities. He moreover billed Medicaid for procedures which were each pointless or not appropriately justified.

His case gained widespread consideration over an incident described inside the lawsuit, by which he extracted a tooth from a sedated affected individual whereas utilizing a hoverboard, filmed the method after which despatched it to various people.

In a minimum of one dialog, Lookhart joked that performing oral surgical process on a hoverboard was a “new customary of care,” the lawsuit acknowledged, citing phone information.

The select acknowledged the hoverboard incident was not in all probability essentially the most extreme aspect of the case.

Lookhart was found to have carried out anesthesia “a whole bunch of events with out teaching or consent, on victims outside his scope of teaching and expertise, whereas stealing money from Medicaid and embezzling from his bosses,” the assertion from the Division of Regulation acknowledged.

Victims on the January trial moreover testified that they’d woken as a lot as uncover that Lookhart had labored on or eradicated the unsuitable tooth, or that he had carried out a novel treatment than what they’d agreed to, KTUU reported.

“This is not an monetary crime,” Eric Senta, an assistant authorized skilled regular with the Division of Regulation, acknowledged on the sentencing. “This is not a case the place the courtroom docket is sentencing any individual who stole $2 million. Lookhart hurt people, prone people, disabled children.”

Lookhart’s authorized skilled, Kevin Fitzgerald, argued that his client had already confronted penalties for his actions.

“He’s misplaced a enterprise, honor, your courtroom docket is successfully acutely aware there are civil matches, there’s been damaging publicity and the in all probability lack of his license, which, as soon as extra, is pending, nevertheless the state’s place is to revoke it fully,” Fitzgerald acknowledged on the sentencing.

Lookhart is scheduled to start out out serving his sentence December 7, Senta confirmed to CNN.

Lookhart’s co-defendants — his office supervisor Shauna Cranford and his firm, Lookhart Dental LLC — are scheduled for sentencing later this week, the assertion acknowledged.

Prosecutors are pushing for the courtroom docket to order Lookhart to pay better than $2 million “to compensate for the funds that Lookhart fraudulently obtained from the Alaska Medicaid system and embezzled,” the Division of Regulation assertion acknowledged.

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