Former first-round NBA draft pick is sentenced to 10 years in prison in $4M health care fraud

Source: Associated Press

Former first-round NBA draft pick is sentenced to 10 years in prison in $4M health care fraud

BY LARRY NEUMEISTER
Updated 5:30 PM EDT, August 3, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge sentenced a former first-round NBA draft pick to 10 years in prison Thursday, saying he used his people skills to entice others to aid his $5 million health care fraud after he “frittered away” substantial earnings from his professional career.

Terrence Williams, 36, of Seattle, was also ordered to forfeit more than $650,000 and to pay $2.5 million in restitution for ripping off the NBA’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan between 2017 and 2021 with the help of a dentist in California and doctors in California and Washington state. Profits were generated by claims for fictitious medical and dental expenses.

Prosecutors said fraudulent invoices created by the medical professionals were processed by other people whom Williams recruited to defraud the plan, which provides health benefits to eligible active and former NBA players and their families.

“You were yet another player who frittered away substantial earnings from the period of time when you were playing basketball professionally,” Judge Valerie E. Caproni told him. “You should have had enough money to be set for life, but you don’t.”

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/nba-health-fraud-williams-96bd079c6a3632addecde71efaed74e7