Dr. Alan I. Aronowitz was sentenced this week to four years in jail and ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution to United Concordia insurance after pleading guilty to using unlicensed assistants to perform root canals.

Aronowitz’s lawyer had argued that white-collar criminals should not get jail time.

There’s an attitude that poor people should go to jail, but wealthy educated people should do community service.

“The lawyer is implying that fraud isn’t so bad,” says Robin Mathias, a healthcare fraud control specialist. “There’s an attitude in this country that if a mother steals to feed her kids and pay the rent, she should go to jail, but if a wealthy person steals to get a vacation home, that person should just do community service. This attitude increases healthcare fraud not only because perpetrators think they are unlikely to go to jail if caught, but also because they often convince themselves that what they’re doing isn’t wrong.”

Ove, Torsten. Downtown Dentist Gets Four Years in Prison. 7 Oct. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 7 Oct 2004.