Denture maker lied to collect payments

A Spokane denture clinic owner was convicted Wednesday of three counts of making false statements to collect Medicaid payments.

But a Spokane County Superior Court jury acquitted Cheryl K. Edlin, 58, of four counts of first-degree theft and two counts of second-theft. Her husband, Claude A. Edlin, 61, faced the same charges and was acquitted on all counts.

Cheryl Edlin faces up to a year in jail when Judge Harold Clarke III sentences her on Sept. 26. Assistant Attorney General Tony Rugel said he hadn’t decided what sentence to seek.

Edlin and her husband, both unlicensed denture-makers who operated separate clinics, were accused in connection with work performed at Cheryl Edlin’s Inland Empire Denture Clinic in Spokane. They were accused of falsely stating to state officials that a licensed dentist had made the dentures for which the Medicaid program for indigent patients was billed.

Court documents identified 15 patients for whom the Medicaid was billed $12,627.

Rugel didn’t dispute that the work was done, but said it didn’t qualify for reimbursement because it was done by unlicensed practitioners. He said the state Department of Health and Social Services received “numerous complaints” about mouth sores caused by ill-fitting dentures from the Edlins’ clinics.

Under state law, dentures may be manufactured only by a licensed dentist or a licensed denture-maker, known as a “denturist.” The Edlins resisted DSHS efforts to force them to obtain denturist licenses for more than a decade and finally ordered the couple to close their clinics. Claude Edlin’s clinic was called “A New You.”

Retired Seattle-area dentist Harold McLearan testified that, although employed two days a week by Cheryl Edlin, he had nothing to do with the dentures she told Medicaid officials he manufactured. He said he made no dentures at all for her clinic, and wasn’t aware that the Medicaid bills he signed were for dentures.

Cheryl Edlin’s attorney, Rob Cossey, attempted to undercut McLearan’s testimony with the argument that, if improper bills were submitted, McLearan must have been aware.

Claude Edlin’s attorney, Tom Krzyminski, agreed that McLearan could scarcely not have known the bills he signed were for dentures.

“What was the sign on the door?” Krzyminski asked. “Inland Empire Denture, not Dental.”

Krzyminski told jurors in closing arguments that Claude Edlin may have done some work at his wife’s clinic, but none related to the criminal charges.

Disputed testimony indicated Claude Edlin, aside from sharing in his wife’s income, had an office in her clinic and saw patients there. An employee said he had an office with his name on the door, but the couple’s daughter gave contradictory testimony.

Krzyminski, said it was “totally understandable” for patients to seek advice from Edlin, who had 43 years of experience, when he visited his wife and sat in a “spare office.”

Cossey suggested the criminal charges were filed in retaliation for the Edlins’ insistence that they didn’t need a license to make dentures.

“If you get on the bad side of DSHS, you can spend years and years and years fighting them and end up in a criminal trial fighting an uphill battle,” Cossey said.

Rugel said the issue was theft, not refusal to get the state-required license, but the license battle showed the couple “thumbed their nose” at the law.