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Federal agents raid Silverthorne dentist’s office in prescription fraud probe

Jack Queen
jqueen@summitdaily.com
Comfort Dental in Silverthorne was searched by Silverthorne police Drug Enforcement Agency personnel on Friday as part of a prescription fraud investigation.
Hugh Carey / hcarey@summitdaily.com

Police and federal agents raided a Silverthorne dentist’s office late last week on suspicion of prescription drug fraud, seizing hundreds of documents and interviewing several employees, the Silverthorne Police Department confirmed Tuesday.

The search, conducted at Comfort Dental on Blue River Parkway last Friday, was based on information from several sources and carried out by Silverthorne police with the help of Drug Enforcement Agency personnel. Police did not officially name a suspect but said they have a person of interest.

“The focus of the investigation is a visiting dentist from the Denver area,” Silverthorne police said in a Tuesday news release. “At this time, the Silverthorne Police Department has no reason to believe that the principal dentists or orthodontists at this location are involved in any criminal activity.”



Police Chief John Minor said his staff would be working with the DEA to review the “extensive documentation” taken from the office.

“It’s going to take us a while to go through all of this paperwork and figure out what exactly we have,” Minor said. “We strongly believe we have a prescription fraud case here, but we’ve got to figure out where all of this takes us.”



A phone message left with reception at Comfort Dental was not returned on Tuesday. Another request for comment through a company representative in Denver was unsuccessful. (Comfort Dental locations are independently owned franchises.)

A person close to the investigation, who requested anonymity to discuss the developing case, said the inquiry was focused on Dr. Bonifacio Guillena, age 41, who has been arrested several times since 2016 and was recently disciplined by state dental regulators for failure to comply with a substance abuse examination.

Guillena was arrested in Denver on the eve of Friday’s raid for an unrelated failure to appear warrant but has since been released, according to jail records.

Guillena was first arrested in Colorado in Oct. 2016 on suspicion of stalking, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records. That charge was dismissed, but Guillena was convicted of violating a protection order and sentenced to two years probation and 60 days in jail, the records indicate.

Silverthorne police arrested Guillena in April 2017 on behalf of the Denver Police Department for a suspected protection order violation, according to the records. Last Thursday, a day before the raid, he was arrested in Denver on a failure to appear warrant.

Guillena currently has an active Colorado dental license, although its expiration date is listed as Feb. 28, 2018, according to Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies records.

Guillena’s license was briefly suspended for five days last December for failure to comply with a Colorado Dental Board investigation into a possible substance abuse disorder, records show.


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