Former NBA players Glen “Big Baby” Davis and Will Bynum were convicted by a Manhattan jury Wednesday on conspiracy charges relating to a scheme to defraud the NBA’s healthcare system out of $5 million.
The scheme involved a number of former NBA draft picks and 18 of the 20-plus defendants in the case are former NBA players.
“While many of the more than 20 defendants convicted in this case were well-known NBA stars, their conduct was otherwise a typical fraudulent scheme designed to defraud the NBA’s health care plan and net the defendants over $5 million in illicit profits,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.
“Today’s conviction exemplifies that despite notoriety or success in sports or any other field, no one is exempt from criminal charges if they engage in fraud.”
Three players have already pleaded guilty for the health care fraud and they are Sebastian Telfair, Darius Miles and Terrence Williams – with Williams sentenced to ten years in prison in August and was ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.
The scheme ran from 2017-21 and throughout that time, Williams would impersonate healthcare employees and recruited legit healthcare providers and NBA players to help him.
Davis and Bynum could face up to 20 years in prison each, but are unlikely to face that much prison time, Bloomberg reports.
Prosecutors said Davis and Bynum made fake claims to the NBA healthcare system for medical and dental procedures they never actually received.
Former Celtics champion Davis was found guilty of health care fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to make false statements, and conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud.
While Bynum was found guilty of conspiracy to submit false statements to a health care plan.
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