My Story

If you found this page because you searched my name, you probably saw the headlines first: Fraud. RICO. Medicaid. Arrest.

You may have seen a government press release or news article. What you probably did not see was my wife, our children, the businesses we spent years building, or what happened inside our home when everything changed.

A government press release can tell you what someone was accused of.

It cannot tell you what it was like to live through it.

THAT IS WHY I AM TELLING MY STORY.

BEFORE THERE WAS A CASE

Before any of this happened, we were a family raising children and building businesses. My wife, Marianna, devoted much of her adult life to dentistry. Together, we built and operated dental practices.

They were businesses. They were supposed to make money. Like every for-profit dental practice, we hired people, paid rent, bought equipment, treated patients, dealt with insurance companies, and tried to grow.

WE BELIEVED WE WERE RUNNING OUR DENTAL BUSINESSES LAWFULLY.

We did not believe we were stealing from Medicaid or operating a criminal enterprise.

We believed we were running dental practices.

THE RULES WERE NOT AS SIMPLE AS THE HEADLINES

One of the most important things to understand is how Medicaid dental benefits worked from our side.

Medicaid itself did not hand our offices one clear, comprehensive set of practical instructions covering every billing and patient-payment situation. Much of the dental benefit was administered through private managed-care companies. Our practices dealt with companies including DentaQuest, Liberty Dental, and MCNA.

Those were the organizations whose contracts, manuals, communications, and instructions we relied upon.

And the guidance was not always the same from one company to another.

WE FOLLOWED THE RULES AND GUIDANCE PROVIDED TO US BY THE INSURANCE COMPANIES WE WERE CONTRACTED WITH.

Some issues that later became central to our case involved whether particular dental materials or services were included in another Medicaid-covered procedure or were non-covered services for which a patient could be responsible.

You would think there would be one clear answer.

THERE WASN'T.

If someone's license, livelihood, reputation, and freedom can depend upon following a rule, that rule should be clear before the government expects the provider to follow it.

A dentist should not discover years later that the government interprets a rule differently from guidance the provider relied upon at the time.

We believed we were operating lawfully.

The government ultimately viewed important parts of what happened differently.

That difference changed our lives.

WE COOPERATED — AND THOUGHT IT WAS OVER

The investigation began years before our arrests. There were calls, emails, meetings, subpoenas, patient records, staff interviews, and requests for documents.

WE COOPERATED.

Then, after records had been provided, I received written communication from the Florida Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit saying the investigation had been closed with no further action required.

Imagine receiving that.

You believe the government looked at the records. You believe it is over. You breathe again and go back to your children, your businesses, and your life.

AND THEN EVERYTHING CHANGES.

EVERYTHING WE BUILT WAS TAKEN AWAY

Eventually there were searches and criminal proceedings. Government searches reached our offices and enormous amounts of records and equipment were taken for review.

Our funds and accounts were frozen. According to our defense filings, businesses struggled to deposit even private-insurance checks. Revenue collapsed. Employees were lost. Some locations faced eviction notices. Legal expenses continued to grow.

Then our names became headlines.

And I lost my freedom.

A business isn't just an asset. It represents years of late nights, risks, sacrifices, employees who depended on you, and plans you made for your children.

And suddenly the life you thought you understood was gone.

THE GOVERNMENT GETS A PRESS RELEASE. A FAMILY GETS SILENCE.

The government has a microphone. It issues a press release. News organizations repeat it. Google remembers it. Strangers read a few paragraphs and form an opinion about your entire life.

But who tells the family's story?

Who tells people what happened at our kitchen table? Who tells them what my wife and children were going through? Who explains what it is like when your children can type their parents' names into Google and see those words?

I CRIED BECAUSE I WANTED TO GO HOME

Until someone takes away your freedom, you don't understand how precious ordinary life is.

Opening your own front door. Sleeping beside your wife. Walking into your child's room. Sitting together at dinner.

There were moments when I cried.

Not because of the businesses or money.

I CRIED BECAUSE I WANTED TO GO HOME.

I wanted to see my wife. I wanted to hold my children. I wanted to sit beside Marianna when she was frightened, look her in the eyes, and tell her somehow we would survive this.

And I couldn't.

A husband wants to protect his wife. A father wants his children to know that when something terrible happens, Dad will be there.

During one of the most frightening periods of our lives, I couldn't be there.

Money can be earned again. Businesses can be rebuilt.

I CAN NEVER GET THAT TIME WITH MY WIFE AND CHILDREN BACK.

THE PLEA WAS ALSO A FAMILY DECISION

Someone looking at a court record sees the word:

PLEA.

They don't see the conversations behind it. They don't see frightened children, legal bills, uncertainty, or the fear of what years more fighting could do to a family.

Eventually I stopped asking only:

"How much longer can I fight?"

I had to ask:

When I agreed to resolve the criminal case through a negotiated plea, protecting my family weighed enormously on me.

That did not change what I believed about how we operated our businesses.

WE DID NOT BELIEVE WE HAD INTENTIONALLY COMMITTED FRAUD.

But when you are a husband and father, legal decisions do not happen in a vacuum.

My family mattered more than proving something to strangers.

A COURT DOCKET WILL NEVER EXPLAIN THAT.

THE POWER OF THE SYSTEM

Before this happened, I thought that if you did not intentionally commit a crime, you explained what happened, provided the records, hired a lawyer, and eventually everything would be sorted out.

I don't see it that simply anymore.

The government has investigators, prosecutors, agencies, lawyers, experts, resources, and time.

An ordinary family has to defend itself while paying lawyers, raising children, and trying to stop its life from collapsing.

We believed the records mattered. We believed the insurance-company communications mattered. We believed the different guidance mattered.

Most importantly, WE BELIEVED INTENT MATTERED.

Believing you are right and having the resources to fight the government are two very different things.

WHEN GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATES GOVERNMENT

Recently, a Florida grand jury investigated what happened to $10 million connected to a Medicaid-related settlement.

The grand jury reportedly concluded that money had been misappropriated, but also concluded there was insufficient evidence to criminally charge anyone because it could not establish who was responsible for the original decision.

NO ONE WAS CRIMINALLY CHARGED.

NO ONE WENT TO PRISON.

And strangely enough, I am glad.

If criminal intent cannot be established, I don't want somebody sent to prison. I don't want another husband taken from his wife or another father separated from his children.

I DON'T WANT EQUAL SUFFERING.

I WANT EQUAL PROTECTION.

If questions about who knew what, who made a decision, and what somebody intended matter when government investigates itself, shouldn't those questions matter just as much when government investigates an ordinary citizen?

What did the person know? What rules were they given? What guidance did they rely upon? What did they intend?

JUSTICE SHOULD PROTECT EVERYONE WITH THE SAME CARE.

THE ONE THING THEY COULD NOT TAKE

When so much of the life I knew disappeared, there was one thing nobody could freeze, seize, or take from me.

MY FAITH.

The stories I had known since childhood suddenly meant something completely different.

Joseph was seventeen when the part of his life that tore him away from his family began. He was sold, falsely accused, and imprisoned. He was thirty when he stood before Pharaoh.

Thirteen years had passed.

And the prisoner eventually became the man Pharaoh placed over Egypt.

I do not compare myself to Joseph. I am simply a Jewish man trying to learn from the stories my faith gave me.

Joseph reminds me: PRISON IS A LOCATION. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BECOME AN IDENTITY.

KING DAVID TAUGHT ME WHAT TO DO WITH ANGER

King David was pursued by King Saul. David had opportunities to harm Saul, but refused to make revenge the purpose of his life.

That lesson matters to me.

I can tell my story. I can preserve the documents. I can challenge things lawfully. I can believe my family was treated unfairly.

But I will not allow hatred to take the years I still have ahead of me.

I DO NOT WANT REVENGE.

I want the truth to be known.

And ultimately, judgment belongs somewhere higher than a prosecutor, courtroom, government agency, newspaper, politician, or Google.

LET GOD JUDGE BETWEEN US.

God knows what we did. God knows what we did not do. God knows what we knew and what we intended.

Human beings can disagree.

GOD KNOWS THE TRUTH.

I am not asking the world to declare me innocent or somebody else guilty. I am telling my story and leaving ultimate judgment where my faith teaches me it belongs:

WHY I AM TELLING THIS STORY

I don't want everything our family experienced to end only in pain.

I want something useful to come from it.

Somewhere there may be another dentist, healthcare provider, or business owner thinking:

"We didn't intentionally do anything wrong. We'll explain it and everything will be fine."

If that is you, take it seriously from the first day.

Get experienced counsel. Preserve everything. Get important guidance in writing. Save emails and payer communications. Document conflicting answers.

And protect your family.

Because behind every case number is something no court docket can show:

I AM MORE THAN A GOOGLE SEARCH

I cannot erase history, and I cannot control what everyone believes.

I am not asking anyone to blindly accept my perspective.

I am asking you to look deeper.

Look at the complete record. Look at what happened before and afterward. Look at the documents and context.

Then reach your own conclusion.

My name is Simon Leizgold. My Hebrew name is Shimon Leizgold.

I am a husband, a father, a businessman, and a Jew.

I know what we believed. I know what we intended.

A headline does not get to tell me who I am.

MY STORY IS STILL BEING WRITTEN

If you are reading this during the darkest period of your own life, I cannot promise you how your story will end.

I can tell you what I learned.

Hold your family close. Hold onto your faith. Preserve the truth. Get good advice. Fight lawfully for what you believe.

And don't let anger become your identity.

YOUR WORST DAY IS NOT NECESSARILY YOUR LAST CHAPTER.

There are things our family lost that will never come back. I wish none of this had happened.

But I still get to decide what I do with the years ahead.

I can spend them angry, or I can try to make what happened useful.

If my story helps one healthcare provider ask better questions, one business owner preserve the right records, one husband protect his family, or one frightened person hold onto hope, then perhaps something meaningful can still come from our pain.

I DO NOT WANT OUR STORY TO END WITH ANGER.

I WOULD RATHER IT END WITH PURPOSE.

And when it comes to the ultimate judgment of my life, my actions, and my heart, I leave that to God.

— Simon (Shimon) Leizgold

DOCUMENTS & CONTEXT

I do not expect anyone to accept my perspective simply because it is mine.

Over time, I intend to make selected public records and source documents available here so readers can review the record, understand the context, and reach their own conclusions.