DALLAS — This summer, News 8 discovered some dentists were luring kids to their offices with pizza and pocket change without their parents' permission, then billing Medicaid for dental procedures that were unneeded.
Tiara Truelove said she and six other kids were offered cash on the campus of Dallas Can Academy in March when they were on their lunch break. A dental recruiter then drove them to All About Dentistry on Scyene Road.
After the recruiter fed the students pizza, their teeth were cleaned and they were each given $10, Tiara said.
When her mother, Tiffney Truelove, found out, she went to the office to complain and said she was met with indifference by the staff.
"You picked up my — at the time 16-year-old — and took her to the dentist, and you bribed her, and you basically kidnapped her," Truelove said. "And after you fed her, you supposedly cleaned her teeth. And then you brought her back and you don't think that you did nothing wrong?"
DALLAS - "Something needs to be done before one of these children dies," Brenda Flores said.
Flores is tough, smart, and protective of her grandson, Isaac. When he didn't come home until after dark one day last March, she was about to call for an Amber Alert.
It turns out, fifteen-year-old Isaac had been taken from his neighborhood to a southeast Dallas dental clinic without her permission.
Isaac, who has severe ADD and asthma, was approached on March 6 by a man in a van.
"'I can give you $10, and a $50 dollar gift card later, and a pizza to take home,'" Isaac quoted the man as saying.
All Isaac had to do was go to the dentist. The man drove him to All About Dentistry on Scyene Road in Dallas. Billing records show All About Dentistry billed Medicaid for 25 procedures on Isaac Flores, totaling $2,041. Medicaid rules do not allow treatment of a minor without the parent or guardian's permission.
"I'm angry," Mrs. Flores said. "I'm very angry, because I'm here to protect my grandson. And he was taken off the streets without my permission. He was sedated. And he has a medical condition."
Devon Allen has a medical condition, too.
He was taken by a recruiter to All About Dentistry last month, without his mother's knowledge. Gale Allen, his mother, has now hired an attorney, Ajay Shah. "It truly shocks the conscience," Shah said. "These children have been truly impacted by this individual's actions." He now represents two parents and four children in the case, but the number may be growing.
Isaac Flores said there were other children in the van with him when he was taken to All About Dentistry last March.
Blanca Flores said she filed a police report the day of the incident, and complained to the Attorney General as well. She hasn't heard back. State Senator Royce West, (D-Dallas), urges victims to contact his office. "I won't get stonewalled by an agency, because we will make certain that those claims get investigated by the proper authorities," West said.
Dr. Hamid Farahani, who owns the clinic on Scyene Road and two other All About Dentistry clinics, denies he has done anything wrong. He said he has been audited by Medicaid five times and never found guilty of anything. He admits he owns a van and that he employs a patient recruiter.
So far, he has refused to give any of the parents involved any paperwork on their sons' treatment. E-mail bharris@wfaa.com
