An oral surgeon who worked in New York prisons, including those in St. Lawrence County, has himself been sentenced to six months in prison for false billing.

Dr. Timothy J. O'Keefe, an oral surgeon who contracted with the Department Of Corrections And Community Supervision (DOCCS) to provide specialty dental care for inmates at 26 correctional facilities in upstate New York, repeatedly billed DOCCS for surgical procedures he did not perform, according to investigators.

Among the places he performed his work were the Ogdensburg and Riverview facilities in Ogdensburg, and the correctional facility in Gouverneur DOCCS.

O’Keefe pleaded guilty to second-degree offering a false instrument for filing in the and was sentenced Thursday in Albany County Court to six months incarceration, and is required to pay $14,640 in restitution.

“This individual tried to exploit the system, developing a scheme to inflate his income by making false claims about the work he performed,” said state Inspector General Catherine Leahy-Scott. “As a result of this investigation he is returning taxpayer dollars to the state and will be serving time in prison as a consequence of his actions.”

O’Keefe admitted that roughly from August 2009 to April 2011, he submitted false invoices to DOCCS, over-billing the state by “upcoding” – that is, billing for more complex procedures than he actually performed, according to a press release from state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office.

Schneiderman credited the Office of the New York State Inspector General, the Office of the New York State Comptroller, and the DOCCS Inspector General’s Office with “invaluable assistance in this case.”