Carinthian dentist in Graz sentenced to €90,000 fine
A Carinthian dentist has been found guilty in Graz of assault and fraud against three patients. The sentence of €90,000 in fines is not yet final.
Guilty verdict after three years: Graz court sentences Carinthian dentist
After three years of proceedings, the trial against a Carinthian dentist at Graz Regional Court concluded on Wednesday afternoon. According to Kleine Zeitung, Judge Andreas Lenz acquitted the medical practitioner of the overwhelming majority of the allegations in doubt – he was found guilty in three cases: assault and fraud. The lay assessor court imposed a fine of €90,000. The verdict is not yet final.
"There is not much left," Judge Lenz began his judgment reasoning. The original indictment had encompassed nearly three dozen injured parties; in the end, three patients remained for whom the court was certain.
Wisdom teeth in children, damaged tongue nerve
Two of the three affected patients were still children at the time of the alleged offence. All four wisdom teeth had been extracted from them in a single session. "Enlightenment, which you have always spoken about," Lenz said directly to the defendant, "did not take place with either of them." In the case of an adult patient, an unnecessary procedure resulted in assault in the form of a damaged tongue nerve.
According to the indictment, the dentist was accused of performing medically unjustified treatments on patients and billing social insurance carriers for services that were not actually provided. However, since the examination of the billing showed a similar picture to the medical allegations, the originally charged commercial qualification of fraud fell away.
Expert witness under pressure
A central element of the years-long proceedings was the court expert, whose qualifications the defence repeatedly questioned. The submission of his entire disciplinary file was demanded, even though he had been exonerated in professional disciplinary proceedings following a complaint. Multiple requests were made for his removal and for the appointment of a new expert.
Already at the last hearing in August, the expert witness had admitted that he could not rule out that several of the questioned treatments could indeed have been medically justified. The emotional tensions between the defence counsel, the defendant – a double doctorate holder – and the expert, a triple doctorate holder, characterised the entire proceedings. "Please go away! I am afraid of you," the expert witness called out in August when the defendant wanted to show him an X-ray image on a laptop.
Long procedural history since 2017
In 2017, a ban from practising the profession was imposed on the dentist. In 2019, the expert was commissioned to prepare the assessment, which basically confirmed the allegations of the social insurance carriers. A first legal proceeding ended with a diversion, which was however revoked. Since 2023, a lay assessor senate under Judge Lenz has been hearing the case anew – until the verdict on Wednesday.
Source: Kleine Zeitung