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18 ex-NBA players, including 5 former Celtics, charged in $4 million health care fraud scheme
NEW YORK (AP) — Eighteen former NBA players were charged Thursday with pocketing about $2.5 million illegally by defrauding the league’s health and welfare benefit plan in a scam that authorities said involved claiming fictitious medical and dental expenses
According to an indictment returned in Manhattan federal court, the ex-players teamed up to defraud the supplemental coverage plan by submitting fraudulent claims to get reimbursed for medical and dental procedures that never happened.
Strauss said prosecutors have travel records, email and GPS data that proves the ex-players were sometimes far from the medical and dental offices at the times when they were supposedly getting treated.
In one instance, she said, an ex-player was playing basketball in Taiwan when he was supposedly getting $48,000 worth of root canals and crowns on eight teeth at a Beverly Hills, California, dental office in December 2018.
The indictment said the scheme was carried out from at least 2017 to 2020, when the plan — funded primarily by NBA teams — received false claims totaling about $3.9 million. Of that, the defendants received about $2.5 million in fraudulent proceeds.
Strauss said each defendant made false claims for reimbursements that ranged from $65,000 to $420,000.
Strauss said the conspiracy was led by Terrence Williams, who began his career as a first-round NBA draft pick in 2009.
Notable names
- Sebastian Telfair
- Glen Big Baby Davis
-Tony Allen
- Darius Miles
- CJ Watson
- Jamario Moon
- Shannon Brown
NEW YORK (AP) — Eighteen former NBA players were charged Thursday with pocketing about $2.5 million illegally by defrauding the league’s health and welfare benefit plan in a scam that authorities said involved claiming fictitious medical and dental expenses
According to an indictment returned in Manhattan federal court, the ex-players teamed up to defraud the supplemental coverage plan by submitting fraudulent claims to get reimbursed for medical and dental procedures that never happened.
Strauss said prosecutors have travel records, email and GPS data that proves the ex-players were sometimes far from the medical and dental offices at the times when they were supposedly getting treated.
In one instance, she said, an ex-player was playing basketball in Taiwan when he was supposedly getting $48,000 worth of root canals and crowns on eight teeth at a Beverly Hills, California, dental office in December 2018.
The indictment said the scheme was carried out from at least 2017 to 2020, when the plan — funded primarily by NBA teams — received false claims totaling about $3.9 million. Of that, the defendants received about $2.5 million in fraudulent proceeds.
Strauss said each defendant made false claims for reimbursements that ranged from $65,000 to $420,000.
Strauss said the conspiracy was led by Terrence Williams, who began his career as a first-round NBA draft pick in 2009.
Notable names
- Sebastian Telfair
- Glen Big Baby Davis
-Tony Allen
- Darius Miles
- CJ Watson
- Jamario Moon
- Shannon Brown
