Dentist prepping to retire discovers employee stole over $200K from practice, feds say
A dentist who had been in business for 38 years took a look at his company account in preparation for his retirement, federal officials said.
That review led the Houston dentist to discover that his financial coordinator, Jennifer Lynn Thornton, had been stealing from him for years, according to a Jan. 16 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas.
Thornton’s attorney declined to comment on the case.
The woman was ordered to serve 41 months, or nearly 3.5 years in prison, and be under supervised release for three years, prosecutors said. She pleaded guilty to wire fraud in July 2023.
Thornton stole at least $223,836 from the dentist office from December 2019 to when she was caught by the owner of the practice in July 2021, federal prosecutors said.
As the person at the practice responsible for “bookkeeping, banking and handling payments from patients and insurance companies,” she funneled the thousands of dollars into her personal accounts by moving refunds from the insurance companies, according to an indictment filed June 28, 2022, in Texas District Court.
Thornton also created a shell company called SGS Healthcare where she continued to move payments from patients and insurance companies into her company’s accounts, the indictment said.
She further manipulated the company’s books to cover up the embezzlement, prosecutors said.
Thornton is expected to voluntarily surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility. Any restitution owed will be determined later, prosecutors said.
This story was originally published January 16, 2025 at 2:35 PM with the headline "Dentist prepping to retire discovers employee stole over $200K from practice, feds say."
