Former NBA stars Tony Allen, Terrence Williams and Sebastian Telfair were indicted along with 16 other former NBA players for committing health care and wire fraud. The players were indicted on Oct. 7 in New York by the Department of Justice.
Terrence Williams is allegedly the leader of the scam that authorities claim defrauded the National Basketball Association’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan out of $4 million. He allegedly recruited Telfair, Allen and the other players to participate in the scheme. Allen’s wife, Desiree Allen, was also indicted on fraud charges.
Also indicted were former NBA players Alan Anderson, Shannon Brown, William Bynum, Ronald Glen Davis, Christopher Douglas-Roberts, Melvin Ely, Jamario Moon, Darius Miles, Milton Palacio, Ruben Patterson, Eddie Robinson, Gregory Smith, Charles Watson Jr., Antoine Wright and Anthony Wroten. Williams was also charged with identify fraud.
FBI Assistant Director Michael J. Driscoll confirmed that a spouse of a former player was also indicted on fraud charges.
“Today we’ve charged 18 former NBA players and one spouse for their alleged participation in a health care fraud scheme that resulted in nearly $2 million in losses to the National Basketball Association’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan,” he said.
Williams is accused of assisting other former players to submit false claims by providing them with fake medical invoices for injuries that didn’t occur. He reportedly also received $230,000 in kickbacks in exchange for heading the scam. Authorities claim that the scheme began in 2017. They were caught after Williams tried to extort one of the other defendants.
whoah, new indictment against 19, incl 18 former NBA players, for allegedly bilking NBA’s health/welfare benefit plan out of around $4,000,000 pic.twitter.com/w97HjGGQjE
— Victoria Bekiempis (@vicbekiempis) October 7, 2021
Arrests were made in Alabama, California, New York, Illinois, Florida, Nevada, Georgia, Tennessee and the state of Washington. The Associated Press reports that a total of $3.9 million in fraudulent claims were submitted for reimbursement with $2.5 million of it being paid to the defendants.
The group was charged with conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud and could face up to 20 years in prison. None of the defendants have yet made a statement.
