Dentistry

The Case of Dentist Dr. Roy S. Shelburne – Sentencing Postponed

Dr. Roy S Shelburne and dental student (VCU) son Ross

The sentencing of Virginia dentist, Dr. Roy S. Shelburne has been postponed due to a recent United States Supreme Court case relating to his conviction on money laundering.

A June 2 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the federal statute for money laundering is the latest in a string of delays – ranging from a late-arriving transcript of the trial, to the defense attorney’s computer crashing at the 11th hour – to push back the sentencing.

On Monday, Judge James P. Jones of the U.S. Western District of Virginia said the high court’s split decision in United States v. Santos “may be significant” in sentencing Shelburne.

Jones called the decision “complicated,” and “something I need to study further.”

It is unclear what if any bearing the high court’s decision will have on the sentencing.

Shelburne was convicted on March 6 of racketeering, health care fraud and money laundering, and faces up to 120 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine.


Dr. Roy Shelburne remains on bail pending sentencing and continues to practice dentistry but on a “dramtically reduced” level.

The judge in the case did not set a trial date for sentencing on Monday. The defense hopes to argue for a new trial at the sentencing hearing.

Stay tuned…..


28 Comments

  • William

    This guy will be sentenced to a country club if he gets anything. Im sure he still has money out there that he will obtain as soon as he gets out. Money talks and the system just never works.

  • SurveySays

    I’m from his hometown. People here were in support, shock, hoping he did not do these things. Since the trial and all of the lies stated in his letter and his sons letter were debunked, it would take a totally gullable, niave(sp) idiot to believe in his innocents. The man will do or say anything then quote bible scripture. Jeez!! He has , thus far, blamed ….his staff, the gov’t(securing $$, cutting his defense funds)Medicaid(even they are still letting him bill them),the jury(consisting of stupid farmers and mechanics), and let’s not forget the poor, uneducated, jealous lee countians that have caused this poor man’s demise. That’s 5 different reasons for his conviction. Anyone here believe that these 5 got together and preyed upon him plotted to take him down, I’ll sell you some prime “Ocean Front property” in downtown Jonesville to enjoy while you cope with your fairytales, dreams, and delusions. If you wish to know more go to leecountyvirginia.com and read thediscussion board, also read the topix.net for Jonesville, Va.

  • Flap

    Thanks for the information. One has to wonder when the feds never usually try a case unless there is an over 90% chance of conviction.

  • steve

    Dear folks
    almost all the Shelburns in lee county have be up to no good for a long time some have made their name in lee county to ,you decide if it’s good or bad. there is one I won’t mention his name but I pray there is a burning hell
    for him i’ll even volinteer to drive a truck haul coal down there or where ever and torture him. just like he has done
    many other people and put them through Hell. ok i’m off my soap box now.
    as some of you my know dr shelburn worked for lee county comunity hospital as hospital director i think this is correct
    and was there when Dr Norton ( my openion was fraimed and sent to prison for 5 years. I guess what goes around
    comes around and it’s his turn . there is all types of people from different walks of life in prison ,and i don’t give a dam if you are are clergy or what your title is if you commit wrong you should be no different than the next man or woman just because you have money wheather you got it honest or dishonist, I say give him the max 120 .

  • An amazed dentist.

    Dear folks,

    I have been following this case for the last several months. I treated medicaid patients from 1975 to 1985. The reimbursement levels are far below the usual customary and reasonable fees charged by dentists nationwide. They are far below the cost of overhead in many cases. I assure you that Dr. Shelburne subsidized the program. In case you don’t know what that means, it means he had to pay more in salaries than he got from doing the treatment! Any dentist today across this great land must collect every year about 1.2-1.5 million to take home about $150,000 per year. The overhead in Dr. Shelburne’s office would be the same as the rest of us. We have prison guards taking home more money than I do and I collect over 1.5 million per year in gross sales. If I made a billing mistake of $8000 over the five years alleged in the trial, that represents an error rate of $8000 in 7.5 million. Do the math. That is an error rate of 0.01 %. In the trial with fraudulent testimony on the part of witness for the gov. they could, by stretching it, come up with $8000. A private insurance investigator came up with less than $500 in the same time frame. I did millions of dollars worth of free care while the government defrauded the providers by not paying for rendered treatment, and reimbursing at 30 to 50% of the reasonable fees. I quit that program for exactly the reasons I am reading on this blog. In the ten years I treated and subsidized Medicaid patients, not one EVER said thank you. There was one huge mistake Dr. Shelburne made. He should never have moved to Western Virginia. A jury of the Doctor’s peers would never have been dumb enough to convict this man. The testimony of the expert was a joke. The amount of billing fraud allegedly proved was a joke. The miniscule amount does not even amount to 0.01% There is not a bank in the US which would not be ecstatic about an error rate that low.
    I have mailed a check to Dr. Shelburne for $1000 to help him pay for the persecution he endured. I live in California and am appalled at the injustice of this witch hunt. Everyone hates dentists, but you folks take the cake! Shame those vicious unprincipled DAs. They need to be disbarred or brought up on charges for malicious prosecution. This case is being followed by dentists everywhere! I assure you folks I am telling every dentist I know to never serve the program! You are being an example for us all. News headline: Ignorant ingrates get to sit on a jury of the worst witch hunt trials since Salem. Congratulations!

  • An amazed dentist.

    Dear folks,

    I have been following this case for the last several months. I treated medicaid patients from 1975 to 1985. The reimbursement levels are far below the usual customary and reasonable fees charged by dentists nationwide. They are far below the cost of overhead in many cases. I assure you that Dr. Shelburne subsidized the program. In case you don’t know what that means, it means he had to pay more in salaries than he got from doing the treatment! Any dentist today across this great land must collect every year about 1.2-1.5 million to take home about $150,000 per year. The overhead in Dr. Shelburne’s office would be the same as the rest of us. We have prison guards taking home more money than I do and I collect over 1.5 million per year in gross sales. If I made a billing mistake of $8000 over the five years alleged in the trial, that represents an error rate of $8000 in 7.5 million. Do the math. That is an error rate of 0.01 %. In the trial with fraudulent testimony on the part of witness for the gov. they could, by stretching it, come up with $8000. A private insurance investigator came up with less than $500 in the same time frame. I did millions of dollars worth of free care while the government defrauded the providers by not paying for rendered treatment, and reimbursing at 30 to 50% of the reasonable fees. I quit that program for exactly the reasons I am reading on this blog. In the ten years I treated and subsidized Medicaid patients, not one EVER said thank you. There was one huge mistake Dr. Shelburne made. He should never have moved to Western Virginia. A jury of the Doctor’s peers would never have been dumb enough to convict this man. The testimony of the expert was a joke. The amount of billing fraud allegedly proved was a joke. The miniscule amount does not even amount to 0.01% There is not a bank in the US which would not be ecstatic about an error rate that low.
    I have mailed a check to Dr. Shelburne for $1000 to help him pay for the persecution he endured. I live in California and am appalled at the injustice of this witch hunt. Everyone hates dentists, but you folks take the cake! Shame on those vicious unprincipled DAs. They need to be disbarred or brought up on charges for malicious prosecution. This case is being followed by dentists everywhere! I assure you folks I am telling every dentist I know to never serve the program! You are being an example for us all. News headline: Ignorant ingrates get to sit on a jury of the worst witch hunt trials since Salem. Congratulations!

  • SurveySays

    Thanks for the comments there Roy Shelburne aka amazed dentist!!! Any person can read you. You are the only one that is so ignorantly passionate about your case. Shame on your lame actions.And quit the lying over the 8000.00 it’s 100’s of thousands and as you’ve been corrected before , a jury of your peers, does not mean 12 dentists. Surely you can’t expect others to be as ignorant as you. I’m hoping for a new trial for you, in which all charges are retried and the lies posted on the www will be considered for you some more time. Roy shame on you, you stole the cake, no one had even a slice due to your greedy hands. You are correct, dentists everywhere are reading your crime and how you ‘feel’ it wasn’t. Delusional! Most are reading thru or checking the facts to see there is no truth to your rants. Did you not inherit your office building that you now claim to pay rent on? Did you transfer several properties in 98 to your wife only? You live in the Appalachians, the poorest area in the US, and had to travel to Honduras to do volunteer work? To help their needy? Think about it. The charges dropped, well the judge didn’t say you were innocent of the charges, only the burden of proof had changed! In other words, you took the cash, they just didn’t prove, pinpoint where you spent it. I hope you are granted a whole new trial!!!

  • Tryreading

    It is easy for people who have never experienced what Dr.Roy is going through to judge him and blame him. But my fiancee’ has been involved in a very similar situation and my fiancee’s only mistake was trying to help the people in the community he was raised. He had two disgruntled employees (one stole 46 charts from his office and was sued and the other commited unemployment fraud) yet the prosecutor actually had nerve to call these women honest even though she only found out a month before that their star witness never informed that she owed 25,000 for stealing charts out of her office. It is waste of taxpayers money to spend more money to prosecute and jail someone than they actually owe. Some doctors are facing jail time for one billing error; so beware it could happen to anyone.

    Tryreadings last blog post..Remember Mr. Kotter?

  • Never Take Medicaid DDS

    I am going through a similar situation as Dr Roy. My crime Not charging Medicare / Medicaid. We were in contact with the MA department at all times and thought we were in compliance. Disgruntled employee gets fired for theft. Reports to the Department of Justice……..The DOJ takes her complaints…Out of no where My entire office is searched and seized by the DOJ. This was my first dental practice and was open for only a few months. Years later now they want to charge me with multiple felonies for billing patients for Root Canals that the patient agreed to pay for and were quoted prior to treatment. According to our state handbook Root Canals are considered a Covered Service..with 2 entire pages of exclusions…Patients that we thought fell into the exclusions were then treated as a Non covered service…we asked the MA office if this was ok and were told that all was ok. Even though they never found any over billing they stopped all payments due to my office. I was stupid to think in america we have civil rights! I almost lost everything and now am facing trumped up charges because they have to justify their actions and what they have done to me. The point is that it doesn’t matter if Dr Roy or myself are guilty or not but people should be angry that the government can shut down a small business, ruin lives, freeze bank accounts take property,etc with out being charged with a crime. Im not sure what will happen with my case, I hope that someone in the DOJ or possibly a judge will recognize the charges against me are crazy and have no common sense. It is easy to Judge someone like DR Roy but i guarantee that The extreme of prosecution against him and his family is not fair justice. The Supreme court already dismissed 7 of the convictions. And now they want to appeal the supreme courts decision? Im surprised they didn’t ask for the death penalty! After I pick up the pieces of my life after all this I will make it my mission to tell all doctors to never ever take medicaid medicare until we have protection from the DOJ for our charity work with these programs.

  • SurveySays

    By Daniel Gilbert
    Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
    Published: July 22, 2008

    ABINGDON, Va. – A U.S. attorney is appealing a federal district court judge’s decision to vacate a dentist’s convictions for money laundering, setting up a legal battle over a federal statute that was recently interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

    A notice of appeal has been filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The appeal from Acting U.S. Attorney Julia C. Dudley indicates the government is pushing back against an ambiguous Supreme Court decision that in some money laundering cases holds prosecutors to a higher burden of proof.

    A jury in March convicted Lee County, Va., dentist Roy Shelburne on seven counts of money laundering, but Judge James P. Jones set aside the convictions following the high court’s June 2 decision. Shelburne was sentenced earlier this month to two years in prison and fined for racketeering, health care fraud and structuring a financial transaction.

    But the legal landscape for money laundering shifted in the wake of United States v. Santos, which determined that “proceeds” from an illegal gambling ring did not mean its gross receipts, but should be more strictly limited to its profits. The court’s key concern in interpreting the term is the potential for abuse by prosecutors who could charge a defendant for both an illegal transaction and paying for the “essential operating expenses” of the transaction – tantamount to double jeopardy.

    In Shelburne’s case, Jones ruled that the dentist’s payment for “building and equipment rent” was not properly construed as coming from illegal proceeds under the statute. In response to the government’s contention that Shelburne’s paying himself a salary met the stricter standard of illegal profits, Jones wrote that “the evidence did not show that these funds were plowed back into the unlawful activity or even into the dental practice generally.”

    The U.S. attorneys prosecuting Shelburne would not comment Monday. Dennis Jones, Shelburne’s defense attorney, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

    In a brief supporting the jury’s convictions, the government argued that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of proceeds should be limited to illegal gambling and not applied more broadly.

    “The profits rule applies only where the transaction is so essential to the commission of the underlying crime” that the two merge and do not become a separate offense. It would not, the attorneys argued, “include transactions such as those charged against Shelburne, which are intended to promote the continuation of a crime in the future.”

    “Santos was a sea change in the law – at least it could be construed that way,” said Anthony Giorno, the lead U.S. prosecutor, in a phone interview following the judge’s decision earlier this month.

    Before the Supreme Court’s ruling, Giorno said, “the law was very strongly in favor of the government.”

    dgilbert@bristolnews.com