Pa. A.G. Reports Sentence of York County Man

Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry Pappert announced that a York County man who reportedly lied about his educational background to obtain jobs as a psychotherapist and fraudulently billed the State Department of Public Welfare’s Medical Assistance Program for nearly $400,000 in fraudulent claims, was sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay nearly $200,000 in restitution.

Pappert said that Dwight A. Dorm, 58, of York, was sentenced by Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover, who also ordered that Dorm pay a $1,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service.

On June 24, 2003, Pappert said, agents of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Section charged Dorm for falsifying documents with three psychotherapy clinics in Adams, Lancaster and Dauphin counties from March 1998 through April 2002. At each clinic Dorm was hired to provide therapeutic support staff, mobile therapy and behavioral services.

Pappert said that Dorm told his employers that he had received a bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Sciences from York College and a master’s degree in Psychological Counseling from Columbia State University in California.

Pappert said his agents discovered that Dorm did not receive the degrees from either of those institutions and that Columbia State University had previously been shut down by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in California after it was deemed to be a “diploma mill.”

Pappert said that Dorm worked at two agencies simultaneously for a period of about six months. During that period, Dorm would reportedly submit billing forms to DPW for services provided to different clients at the same time in different locations.

Pappert said Dorm would submit a claim stating that he worked three hours for one clinic and then later submitted another document claiming that he worked those same three hours at another clinic. The charges stated 135 instances where Dorm made this kind of fraudulent claim.

Pappert said at the time of his arrest, Dorm was charged with four counts of Medicaid fraud. He pleaded guilty to each of those charges on Feb. 9, 2004, before Judge Hoover.

Pappert said that Judge Hoover ordered that Dorm pay $197,072 in restitution and is allowing him to participate in the Dauphin County Prison work release program in order to begin paying restitution.