Bilking hundreds of thousands of dollars from insurance providers for treatments never done has landed a former Calgary dentist a federal penitentiary term.

Justice Gord Wong on Thursday agreed with Crown prosecutor Greg Whiteside that a three-year sentence was justified for Alena Smadych for fraud.

Defence counsel Alain Hepner had sought a community-based conditional sentence for the Russian-born and trained dentist.

Hepner said the exceptional circumstances in Smadych’s case, including the fact she had made full restitution to the five insurance providers she defrauded, should have resulted in a non-custodial term.

But Wong said even the mitigating factors in Smadych’s case — that she pleaded guilty and paid back the money — were tempered by her seeming lack of remorse for her crime.

The Calgary Court of Justice judge noted that presentence reports were peppered with comments from Smadych suggesting others were to blame for her criminal behaviour.

And he said restitution after being caught “basically makes the offender break even.”

“I don’t see the guilty plea as an expression of remorse . . . but rather an acceptance that the game was over,” Wong said.

Smadych originally pleaded guilty to defrauding two insurance companies of more than $126,000 by making false claims she had provided dental work for patients that was never performed.

But after three further victims emerged, she admitted to defrauding them as well, bringing the total amount she swindled to $684,348.10.

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