In an interview, Fukuda said he had disclosed his conviction to the board when he renewed his license years ago and never heard anything back. He closed his private practice in January and said he recently sent a request to the dental board to cancel his license.
The conviction "did not have anything to do with my office, my profession or anything. It was something that was on the private side. But should they have checked? My guess would be yes. . . . I've done everything since then to try to atone for this," he said.
Poncabare, who has been in her post about six months, said she couldn't explain why the bureau did not seek fingerprints from every dentist sooner.
"It's perplexing to me that it was never done," she said.
Fingerprinting is not always the issue. Some licensing boards have known about professionals' convictions or pending charges for years but still have not acted.
Michael Marcus, a dentist from San Jose, for example, was arrested in July 2005 for allegedly touching a 17-year-old patient's breasts and making inappropriate comments to her during an exam.
Prosecutors charged him with misdemeanor sexual battery against three patients, and he is set to stand trial next month. Although the dental board cooperated in the investigation, Marcus continues to practice without restriction, and the board's website lists only a previous disciplinary action against him from 1996. In that case, the dental board suspended him for 30 days and placed him on five years' probation for fondling the breasts of three patients.
In an interview, Marcus said the criminal charges are not true and should be dealt with by the courts before any action is taken by the dental board. A spokesman for the Department of Consumer Affairs said the board was aware of the case but could not comment on it.
Laura Moskowitz, a staff attorney for the National Employment Law Project in Oakland, said the state should proceed with caution as it gathers arrest and conviction information on health professionals. The law requires proof that the convictions are "substantially related" to the qualifications and duties of the job, she said.
"There are thousands and thousands of people who may have had something happen in the past, and it's not reflective of who they are today and the kind of work they can perform," she said.
