Former dental clinic manager gets fed prison in second embezzlement case
Dec, 6, 2018
A federal judge on Thursday told Jill Bowser that her drug addiction does not excuse her “outrageous conduct” of embezzlement and forging prescriptions and sent her away for 21 months.
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon also tacked on another 10 months for violating probation in a previous embezzlement case.
Bowser is a former dental office manager from West Mifflin.
Twice she has victimized employers who trusted her.
She went to prison the first time, got out, got a new job under a different name and then did the same thing.
Her previous victim, Marjorie Leof, a Pleasant Hills dentist, took the stand and said Ms. Bowser has no respect for the law and doesn’t care about the pain she causes.
“Her narcissism won’t allow it,” she said.
Bowser, 51, pleaded guilty in August to embezzlement and narcotics charges. She stole $87,000 from Steel City Dental Associates in Turtle Creek. She also forged prescriptions for narcotic painkillers so she could sell them.
Bowser and her public defender, Sarah Levin, had hoped for probation and a treatment program to help her deal with a decade-long addiction to narcotics.
Prosecutors wanted jail time.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Shaun Sweeney said that when Bowser was convicted of the same crimes in 2012, she told a judge that she would “never again commit such a stupid, irresponsible and dishonest act.”
Then she did exactly that.
After she was hired at SCDA using a different name, Mr. Sweeney said, she forged and mailed an employment verification form on SCDA letterhead to her probation officer. The letter, purportedly from the owner of the practice, said Bowser was working there, deceiving the probation officer into believing that SCDA knew about her past and hired her anyway.
Bowser used her maiden name and not her married name, Jill D’Angelo, which she had used in the previous case.
Mr. Sweeney said prison is the only way to stop her.
“She undoubtedly would have continued to forge and embezzle for as long as she could get away with it,” he said. “Fortunately, however, the USPO and the FBI were able to put a stop to the defendant’s criminal activity before the defendant completely destroyed SCDA and caused more losses to the insurers.”
The judge agreed and U.S. marshals led Bowser away.
She initially came to the attention of the FBI last year when federal probation officers said they thought she was forging prescriptions again.
She had previously been the officer manager at Dr. Leof’s practice. She forged prescriptions under various dentists’ names to obtain more than 100 scripts for painkillers in her name or the names of relatives, according to the FBI.
Agents also found that she was diverting checks from insurance companies that were supposed to go to the practice’s bank account.
The FBI said she diverted 129 checks and stole $475,000 in all.
She was released from prison in 2016 and was still on probation when SCDA hired her, not realizing who she was.
Felon on probation for embezzling from dental office charged again in similar scheme
May 2, 18
A former dental office manager from Pleasant Hills on federal probation after spending 41 months in prison for health care fraud has been at it again, this time using a different name, the FBI says.
Jill Bowser, who had previously been known by her married name, Jill D’Angelo, is charged in U.S. District Court again with embezzlement in connection with a dental practice in Turtle Creek where she worked and forging prescriptions for narcotic painkillers so she could sell the pills.
Bowser, who is in her early 50s, came to the FBI’s attention in January when U.S. probation officers said they were concerned she was forging prescriptions for opioids.
Formerly an office manager of a dental practice in Pleasant Hills, she was convicted of embezzling $475,000 from 2003 to 2010 and was sentenced in 2012 to 41 months behind bars. Since her release in 2014, she’s been using the Bowser name.
In a complaint filed under seal on Tuesday, the FBI said Bowser had been working at a dental office called Steel City Dental Associates in Turtle Creek and had been forging painkiller prescriptions purportedly written by a dentist there identified as “R.K.” The FBI said RK is a dentist at the practice but did not authorize any prescriptions for Bowser.
FBI Agent Ryan Melder said in an affidavit that Bowser also forged the names of other dentists to obtain over 100 prescriptions for painkillers in her name or the names of her relatives and filled them at area pharmacies between 2016 and this year.
Security camera footage shows her at the pharmacies picking up the prescriptions, according to the affidavit.
Agent Melder said he also had the owner of the practice record a conversation with Bowser during which she admitted that she had forged prescriptions and sold the pills “because she needed money.”
The agent said his investigation revealed that Bowser was also diverting checks from insurance companies that were supposed to go to the business bank account but instead went to her own account. From 2016 to January 2018, she deposited 129 checks for about $87,000.
