Former Owner of Austin Dental Practices Sentenced to Federal Prison for Wire Fraud

AUSTIN, Texas – A Pearland man was sentenced in federal court in Austin to 36 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution after being convicted of wire fraud.

According to court documents, Clinton Finch Herzog, 49, defrauded investors in his dental practices of hundreds of thousands of dollars between 2016 and 2018. Herzog’s investors agreed to make capital investments in limited liability companies created by Herzog to manage dental practices.  Herzog promised, among other things, that the relevant limited liability companies would not commingle investor funds with assets of any other person. Herzog routinely violated the limited liability company agreements by commingling investor funds with his own personal funds and by diverting investors’ money for his own personal use, including to pay for expensive meals, airline tickets and travel expenses, liquor, and jewelry.

In addition to imposing the 36-month prison sentence, the court sentenced Herzog to a supervised release term of three years and ordered him to pay $2,182,760.63 in restitution.

The FBI investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gabriel Cohen prosecuted the case.

*The mention of “Austin Dental Practices” in the headline of this press release does not infer that Mr. Herzog was the owner of the business named Austin Dental, and the two are not implied to be associated with each other.

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