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Former NBA forward Glen Davis was sentenced by a federal judge Thursday to 40 months in prison, plus three years' supervised release, for his Nov. 2023 conviction in an alleged scheme to defraud the league's health care benefits plan. More than 20 people, including numerous former players such as Terrence Williams and Keyon Dooling, have been sentenced in the case for filing false medical claims with the NBA Players' Health and Benefit Welfare Plan.
Before the sentence was announced, Williams choked up repeatedly as he blamed his crime on “stupidity and greed” and said he regretted that his incarceration will keep him from his six children, two of whom are now adults. “I one million percent take full accountability for my role in this case,” he said.
He added that he came to court “humble and humiliated” as he blamed his turn toward crime in part on an opioid addiction that developed after he took painkillers to cope with the pain of lingering injuries from his professional career. The judge, though, said it appeared that he used his big personality to lure friends and others to join him in a scheme to steal money because he didn’t want to seek legitimate employment. She said his behavior was “extortionate, aggressive.” And his motivation, she added, “was greed.” “You think first and foremost about yourself and not others,” Caproni said.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the defendant who played for Louisville in college recruited medical professionals and others to carry out a criminal conspiracy and maximize illegal profits. “Williams not only lined his pockets through fraud and deceit, but he also stole the identities of others and threatened a witness to further his criminal endeavors. For his brazen criminal acts, Williams now faces years in prison.” Williams has been incarcerated since May 2022, when prosecutors alleged that he sent threatening phone texts to a witness in the case.
Former New Jersey Nets player Terrence Williams was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for masterminding a scheme to steal $5 million from the National Basketball Association’s health care plan. Williams, 36, admitted in August 2022 to orchestrating the conspiracy, in which he roped in 18 former ballers to defraud the NBA’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan that provides extra coverage to former and retired players. In addition to the hefty prison time handed down by Manhattan federal Judge Valerie Caproni, the former Nets shooting guard must also pay more than $3.1 million in restitution and forfeitures.
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From 2017 through 2021, Williams and the co-defendants — who also include doctors and a dentist — allegedly submitted bogus invoices, replete with typos and inconsistencies, to the health care plan for reimbursement of medical and dental expenses for care that never occurred, prosecutors said. William, of Seattle, Washington, recruited other hoopsters and retired players into making fraudulent medical claims by offering to give them fake invoices — which he’d gotten from the crooked health care providers, prosecutors said.
In exchange for coordinating the scam, Williams received $346,000 in kickbacks, the feds said. Williams impersonated employees from the insurance company to email co-defendants and scare them into keeping up the scheme and sending him more kickbacks, the feds alleged. For instance, Williams told one co-defendant to pay him a “fine” or risk being reported for the fraudulent invoices, prosecutors claimed.
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that KEYON DOOLING and ALAN ANDERSON were sentenced to 30 months and 24 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in a scheme to defraud the National Basketball Association (“NBA”) Players’ Health and Welfare Benefit Plan (the “Plan”). U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni sentenced DOOLING today and previously sentenced ANDERSON on February 10, 2023.
According to the Indictments, public court filings, and statements made in court: The Plan is a health care plan providing benefits to eligible active and former players of the NBA. DOOLING and ANDERSON both played in the NBA and were eligible to receive reimbursements from the Plan for legitimate, qualifying medical expenses. Co-defendant TERRENCE WILLIAMS orchestrated the scheme to defraud the Plan.[1] DOOLING and ANDERSON also occupied managerial roles in the scheme. WILLIAMS, DOOLING, and ANDERSON recruited other former NBA players to defraud the Plan, including by offering to provide them with false invoices to support their fraudulent claims.
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An Encino chiropractor has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years behind bars for his role in a multimillion-dollar scheme involving former NBA players to defraud the basketball league’s health plan, according to court papers obtained Wednesday. Patrick Khaziran, known to players as Dr. Pat, was also ordered Tuesday by a federal judge in Manhattan to pay restitution of $1.3 million and forfeit $439,000.
Prosecutors said ex-NBA guard Terrence Williams ran the scheme and recruited others to be part of it, giving them fake paperwork for medical and dental reimbursements to submit. The former player pleaded guilty in August to conspiring to commit health care and wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft, and is awaiting sentencing.
Former NBA player Terrence Williams, the ringleader of a scheme to defraud the NBA’s health plan, pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud, the Department of Justice announced Friday. “Williams led a scheme involving more than 18 former NBA players, a dentist, a doctor, and a chiropractor, to defraud the NBA Players’ Health and Welfare Benefit Plan of millions of dollars,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement. “Williams also impersonated others to help him take what was not his — money that belonged to the Plan.”
Former NBA player Terrence Williams will face arraignment May 6 in the Southern District of New York on a superseding indictment alleging he was the ringleader of a plan to defraud the NBA players’ health care plan of about $5 million. The indictment charges that Williams provided other former NBA players with false invoices from William Washington, a doctor in Washington state, and Aamir Wahab, a California dentist, “to support their false and fraudulent claims” for medical services, which they submitted to the plan.
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