Former NBA participant Terrence Williams has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for defrauding the NBA well being and welfare profit plan out of greater than $5 million, the United State’s Legal professional’s Workplace introduced Thursday. He has been jailed in Brooklyn because the spring of 2022 resulting from threatening witnesses.
Williams pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit well being care and wire fraud along with aggravated identification theft final 12 months. Together with jail time, he may also must pay greater than $3.1 million in restitution and forfeitures.
“Williams led a wide-ranging scheme to steal thousands and thousands of {dollars} from the NBA Gamers’ Well being and Welfare Profit Plan,” U.S. lawyer Damian Williams stated in an announcement. “Williams recruited medical professionals and others to broaden his prison conspiracy and maximize his ill-gotten beneficial properties.
“Williams not solely lined his pockets by fraud and deceit, however he additionally stole the identities of others and threatened a witness to additional his prison endeavors. For his brazen prison acts, Williams now faces years in jail.”
The NBA well being and welfare profit plan is meant to serve eligible energetic and former gamers of the league, in addition to their members of the family.
Williams was accused of recruiting different retired gamers into making fraudulent medical claims from round 2017 to 2020. Their scheme concerned utilizing faux invoices for medical and dental work that by no means truly occurred. Williams was considered one of 18 former NBA gamers indicted in 2021. The codefendants additionally embrace a dentist, a health care provider and a chiropractor.
Williams additionally impersonated a well being plan worker and threatened gamers who didn’t pay him a “kickback” of at the very least $300,000.
They have been ultimately caught due to discrepancies in paperwork. Based on CBS Information, prosecutors stated former NBA middle Gregory Smith submitted claims for a root canal and crowns on Dec. 20, 2018 in Beverly Hills. Nonetheless, Smith wasn’t in California on the time as a result of he was enjoying for Taiwan’s Tremendous Basketball League.
Williams had been on pretrial launch however was put into custody in 2022 as a result of he had allegedly threatened a witness.
Based on the U.S Legal professional’s Workplace, Williams texted the witness that they have been “speaking option to[o] f—–g a lot,” that they wanted to “shut the f–k up” and “me spitting in your face is precisely what you will see.”
Williams performed a complete of 4 seasons within the NBA and final appeared in 2013. He frolicked with the Nets, Rockets, Kings and Celtics.
