At the end of 2021, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (where the NBA headquarters is located) issued an announcement that stunned many people: 18 former basketball players were detained for fraudulently appropriating 3.9 million. USD health insurance money from NBA. Prosecutor Audrey Strauss, who directly directs the investigation, commented to reporters: “The scammers’ methods and tricks are nothing new, it’s just that they have established a “spider web”. “extremely tight”.
Among those detained are some notable names such as Anthony Allen, the player who helped the Celtics win the championship in 2008; Shannon Brown, longtime teammate of LeBron James and Kobe Bryant; Darius Miles, former football player and Hollywood star; Ronald Glen Davis, who has won three player of the year titles. What’s even more strange is that the mastermind of the scam is not a star but just a B-list player named Terrence Williams. His most effective “assistant” was Desiree Allen, Anthony Allen’s wife.
The prosecutor’s office accused the 18 defendants of forging a series of medical examination documents and hospital admission documents to appropriate 3.9 million USD in health insurance money, of which they disbursed 2.5 million USD. USD. Terrence Williams is the person who provided fake documents to other players in exchange for commissions. It is estimated that over the past four years, he has received a total of 230,000 USD.
According to a report from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, fake profiles of subjects often ask the NBA to pay them about 65,000 – 420,000 USD. Terrence Williams and Desiree Allen secretly sold on the social network Telegram sets of fake invoices and other documents that players only needed to fill in with their names. These bills originated from a bogus acupuncture facility in the name of Desiree’s distant relative.
Prosecutor Audrey Strauss said: “We used location data to ascertain suspicious circumstances. For example, in one case, Shannon Brown asked the NBA to pay him $48,000 in insurance for acupuncture and treatment of… 8 cavities in Beverly Hills, California. GPS history, however, shows that Shannon was playing soccer in Taiwan at that time.”
In court, Terrence Williams confessed that he started the fraud plot around the beginning of 2017. What is difficult to understand is that for such a long time, he and his accomplices continuously escaped the “eyes and ears” of the internal control agency. of the NBA. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office commented: “Fraudsters continuously commit elementary mistakes such as using many different fonts on the same invoice, mismatched seals, and the address of the issuing agency. inconsistency, etc. This shows that there are dangerous weaknesses in the NBA’s self-monitoring mechanism.”
The battle in court
The arrest of the subjects was assigned to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Most of the subjects accepted the FBI’s detention order, except for Ronald Glen Davis. This former football player locked all the doors to his house, then threatened to open fire on anyone who came near his residence. It took the police nearly an hour of siege and negotiation to get Ronald Glen Davis to drop his gun and surrender.
The defendants were charged with insurance fraud and using and distributing fake invoices. The maximum sentence for both crimes is 20 years. Terrence Williams was also charged with identity theft, falsifying invoices and documents, and establishing a fake company. With such a high penalty, it is understandable that there has been a “war of words” that has lasted for many months between the prosecutor and the bar association representing the defendant.
Defense attorneys focused on how prosecutors obtained the defendants’ GPS data. According to US law, companies providing satellite navigation services are responsible for keeping customer navigation data absolutely confidential unless law enforcement agencies provide a legitimate reason (such as ensure national security). Only in that case can businesses hand over customer data to judicial authorities.
Details of the investigation remain confidential, but there is reason to believe that not all of the information the prosecutor’s office obtained was obtained through legal means. The lawyer representing player Darius Miles presented evidence that his car had a location chip installed. In case they prove that the investigators were the ones planting the chip, it is likely that the court will be forced to review the legality of the evidence presented by the prosecutor.
Up to now, only 7 out of 18 defendants have pleaded guilty and asked for acquittal. They were forced to return the appropriated money and each individual paid an additional $75,000 in fines. According to observers, it is likely that the court will have to wait until the middle of this year to resolve all remaining cases. Currently, the players have paid bail to return to their place of residence to wait for the court’s decision.
Argumentative
The arrest of the former NBA players comes weeks after three American football players, Clinton Portis, Tamarick Vanover and Robert McCune, pleaded guilty to health insurance fraud. The method of operation of the three subjects is the same as in the NBA case. They used fake invoices as proof of purchasing expensive medical equipment such as oxygen ventilators, sound wave generators and magnetic scanners. Of the $2.9 million the subjects requested to be paid by the NFL football tournament, they received $40,000.
Two back-to-back fraud schemes have sparked new debate about whether sports federations should continue their insurance programs for athletes. Less than 20 years ago, athletes’ unions had great difficulty getting the federation to introduce the above policy. Many years ago, there were many cases where families of former athletes lost their careers because of medical expenses for their children and grandchildren. Retired athletes often encounter lifelong disabilities such as spinal nerve injuries, Alzheimer’s, etc. due to injuries during competition.
The vast majority of the public believes that sports federations should continue to help pay for athletes’ treatment costs. A spokesman for the American College Football Association (CFA) said: “In the context of US medical costs increasing due to external causes, the federation’s insurance funds are a solution.” The best way to both support the athletes’ families and help the athletes stabilize their mental state and continue focusing on competition.”
The US sports industry must take steps to change immediately to ensure that cases of insurance fraud no longer occur. Recently, Director of the FBI’s New York office, Mr. Michael J. Driscoll, had a press conference about fraud in the insurance industry. It is estimated that insurance companies in the US have lost $12 billion to fraudsters over the past two years. This number is expected to increase as the United States continues to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic while the human resources of supervisory agencies are stretched thin.
