THE BLAZE
A former NBA player will be wearing a prisoner’s uniform for the next decade after a federal judge sentenced him to 10 years behind bars in connection with a “sprawling” health care scheme that defrauded the league’s benefit plan of at least $5 million.
Like all eligible current and former NBA players, 36-year-old Terrence Williams, a shooting guard who spent three years in the league before playing mostly overseas, was enrolled in the NBA’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan for medical and dental coverage. However, between 2017 and 2021, Williams and 18 other former players engaged in a fraud scheme that involved filing invoices for medical and dental treatments and services that were never rendered, prosecutors said.
According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Williams “orchestrated” the scam, enlisting the other players as well as doctors in California and Washington state and at least one dentist to provide him with false invoice forms. Williams then gave the false invoice forms to various players to file in exchange for a kickback. Through those kickbacks alone, Williams pocketed $300,000.
But that wasn’t the only money he collected from the scheme. Williams also created email accounts and pretended to be various plan employees, including the plan’s administrative manager, the press release claimed. From these email accounts falsely representing plan employees, Williams threatened a physician co-defendant that if the co-defendant did not pay him a “fine,” these “employees” would rat the doctor out to the authorities. Williams received an additional $346,000 from that co-defendant alone.
Williams, originally from Seattle, was arrested and released on bail in October 2021. However, the following April, he began sending threatening text messages to co-defendants, apparently because he feared they were being too cooperative with authorities. According to prosecutors, Williams texted that a witness was “talking way to[o] f***ing much,” to “shut the f*** up,” and that “me spitting in your face is exactly what you’ll see.”
As a result of those threats, in May 2022, U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni remanded Williams back to jail at the government’s request. He has been in federal custody ever since.
Three months later, in August 2022, Williams pled guilty to conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. On Thursday, Judge Caproni sentenced him to 10 years in federal prison and ordered that he pay more than $3.1 million total in forfeitures and restitution.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams seems to believe that Terrence Williams deserves “years in prison.” “[Terrence] Williams led a wide-ranging scheme to steal millions of dollars from the NBA Players’ Health and Welfare Benefit Plan,” the U.S. attorney said. “Williams recruited medical professionals and others to expand his criminal conspiracy and maximize his ill-gotten gains. 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.”
Terrence Williams was drafted by the then-New Jersey Nets in 2009. He also played with the Houston Rockets for less than two seasons before brief stints with the Sacramento Kings and Boston Celtics. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment from the New York Post.
