18 Ex-NBA Players Charged In $4M Health Care Fraud Scheme
Socialites, get into this! Eighteen former NBA players have been charged with defrauding the league’s health and welfare benefit plan out of about $4 million.
According to the Seattle Times, the ex-athletes all were engaged in a widespread scheme to defraud the plan by submitting false and fraudulent claims. They did this to get reimbursed for medical and dental expenses that were never actually incurred. It said that the scheme started in 2017 to 2020, when the plan received false claims totaling up to $3.9 million. Of that, the defendants received about $2.5 million in fraudulent proceeds, the news site notes.
According to 6ABC, the alleged ringleader is Terrence Williams, who was drafted by the Nets back in 2009. The other former players indicted are reportedly Alan Anderson, Tony Allen, Desiree Allen, Shannon Brown, Will Bynum, Christopher Douglas-Roberts, Melvin Ely, Milton Palacio, Ruben Patterson, Eddie Robinson, Greg Smith, Charles Watson, Antoine Wright, and Tony Wroten, Sebastian Telfair, Glen “Big Baby” Davis, and Darius Miles.
The 18 players were among 19 individuals charged in the indictment. Allen’s wife, Desiree Allen, is the only woman and non-NBA player charged in the indictment. So far, the NBA has not released a statement regarding this news.
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