Felon who embezzled from dental office charged again in similar scheme

A former dental office manager from Pleasant Hills on federal probation after spending 41 months in prison for health care fraud has been at it again, this time using a different name, the FBI says.

Jill Bowser, who had previously been known by her married name, Jill D’Angelo, is charged in U.S. District Court again with embezzlement in connection with a dental practice in Turtle Creek where she worked and forging prescriptions for narcotic painkillers so she could sell the pills.

Bowser, who is in her early 50s, came to the FBI’s attention in January when U.S. probation officers said they were concerned she was forging prescriptions for opioids.

Formerly an office manager of a dental practice in Pleasant Hills, she was convicted of embezzling $475,000 from 2003 to 2010 and was sentenced in 2012 to 41 months behind bars. Since her release in 2014, she’s been using the Bowser name.

In a complaint filed under seal on Tuesday, the FBI said Bowser had been working at a dental office called Steel City Dental Associates in Turtle Creek and had been forging painkiller prescriptions purportedly written by a dentist there identified as “R.K.”

The FBI said RK is a dentist at the practice but did not authorize any prescriptions for Bowser.

FBI Agent Ryan Melder said in an affidavit that Bowser also forged the names of other dentists to obtain over 100 prescriptions for painkillers in her name or the names of her relatives and filled them at area pharmacies between 2016 and this year.

Security camera footage shows her at the pharmacies picking up the prescriptions, according to the affidavit.

Agent Melder said he also had the owner of the practice record a conversation with Bowser during which she admitted that she had forged prescriptions and sold the pills “because she needed money.”

The agent said his investigation revealed that Bowser was also diverting checks from insurance companies that were supposed to go to the business bank account but instead went to her own account. From 2016 to January 2018, she deposited 129 checks for about $87,000.

Bowser appeared Tuesday before a federal magistrate judge and waived a detention hearing.

No lawyer was listed for her in court records. Torsten Ove: tove@postgazette.com.