Oct 17, 2007 9:50 pm US/Central
Dental Clinic Left Patients Toothless And In Debt
Rosewood Dental Took Payments, Shuttered Without Completing Work
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
A chain of Chicago dental clinics is being investigated by the Secret Service for bank fraud.
The clinics closed suddenly after operating in downtown Chicago, Naperville, Oak Park and Highland Park.
As CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, many patients were left tangled up in an apparent dental deception with no teeth, and big loans to pay off.
Hundreds of patients have been left high and dry by a chain of clinics called Rosewood Dental.
James and Willie Winters are out $20,000.
"I'm furious for the service. I'm furious for the money they've taken," James Winters said.
Winters has been to Rosewood Dental more than 40 times, and the work is still not done.
"They walked away and closed the doors," he said.
After that happened last month former Rosewood employees Erik Eichert and Sylvia Rudzinski came to CBS 2, concerned about the patients.
"There are patients that had all their teeth pulled that are walking around toothless right now," Rudzinski said.
Rosewood pulled all Betty Hodges's teeth in one visit, then later gave her dentures that were too big.
"I tried to bite, the bottom plate would pivot; when I bit on the front, the front flipped them right out," Hodges said.
Rosewood's district manager, Vincent O'Neill, pitched the financing deals that made Rosewood appealing to patients. It was so high pressure that while a dentist pulled Tim Harrison's teeth, a Rosewood representative drove to his mother's house to get her to co-sign on his $12,000 dental loan.
"I have no teeth back here," Harrison said. "And I'm out $12,000."
CBS 2 has obtained records showing the man apparently behind the operation had his dental license suspended and later revoked in other states.
His name is Gary Anusavice. Charges with licensing agencies in Massachusetts and Rhode Island included providing unwanted dental services, credit card fraud, bait and switch, and billing patients for services not delivered.
O'Neill told CBS 2 that Anusavice hired him to open the clinics in Illinois saying, "He's the man, the man behind it all."
O'Neill estimates the Rosewood Clinics collected at least $4 million to $5 million dollars in 11 months.
"So now I'm sitting with nothing and still gotta pay the bill," Hodges said.
Anusavice could not be reached for comment. Neither could his business associate, named as president of Empire Dental, the company running the Rosewood clinics in Illinois.
The banks and other companies that financed the dental work are now cooperating with a Secret Service fraud investigation of the clinics.
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