Federal agents charged 18 former NBA players and one of their wives in a $4 million healthcare and wire fraud case, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Players “engaged in a widespread scheme to defraud the Plan by submitting and causing to be submitted false and fraudulent claims for reimbursement of expenses for medical and dental services that were not actually rendered,” the Department of Justice said Thursday.
“The defendants’ playbook involved fraud and deception. Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement partners, their alleged scheme has been disrupted, and they will have to answer for their flagrant violations of law,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said.
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Former NBA shooting guard Terrence Williams, who orchestrated the scheme and recruited his co-defendants, provided the other retired players and one of their wives with fake invoices and receipts for medical procedures that never occurred, which would allow the players to be reimbursed if approved by the NBA, the Justice Department said. GPS and flight records showed that the defendants were often not in the area of their reported medical and dental procedures at the time they were supposedly receiving them, the department said.
The fraud cost the NBA’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan nearly $2 million in losses, the statement alleged.
The NBA said it will “cooperate fully with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in this matter.”
“The benefit plans provided by the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association to our players are critically important to support their health and well-being throughout their playing careers and over the course of their lives, which makes these allegations particularly disheartening,” the league said.
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All 19 defendants were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, the Justice Department said. Williams faces an additional count of aggravated identity theft, which has a maximum prison sentence of two years, the department’s statement added.
The charges come a month after former NFL players pleaded guilty to a similar scheme defrauding a healthcare program meant to reimburse retired players for medical expenses.
