A dentist in Anchorage, Alaska, has been convicted on dozens of charges after he was filmed extracting a patient’s tooth as he stood on a hoverboard, said Alaska Department of Law.
The dentist named Seth Lookhart was convicted on 46 felony and misdemeanor counts in Anchorage Superior Court on Friday by Judge Michael Wolverton.
Lookhart was charged in a lawsuit filed by the state in 2017 with “unlawful dental acts,” saying his patient care did not meet professional standards.
In at least one conversation, the dentist joked that performing oral surgery on a hoverboard was a “new standard of care,” the lawsuit said, citing phone records.
Lookhart was also charged with medical assistance fraud for billing Medicaid for procedures that were either unnecessary or not properly justified and theft of $25,000 or more by diverting funds from Alaska Dental Arts, among dozens of others.
The evidence indicated Lookhart “believed that he could get away with his fraud indefinitely and that he believed his scheme was foolproof,” Judge Wolverton said, according to the Department of Law’s news release. That evidence “was often supported, and often in excruciating detail, by Lookhart’s own texts, photos and videos.”
He’s expected to be sentenced on April 30.
The Alaska Department of Law thanked several of Lookhart’s former patients who testified during the trial, including the patient whose tooth was removed while Lookhart was filmed on the hoverboard.
Veronica Wilhelm testified she did not consent to being filmed while sedated nor to having her tooth taken out while Lookhart was on the hoverboard.
Wilhelm didn’t even know about the video until she was contacted by investigators, she said.
