On Thursday morning, Jonathan Dienst and Tom Winter of NBC News reported that 18 former NBA players had been arrested and charged in a health insurance fraud scheme. Of the 18 former players, eight of them spent time with the Clippers during their career.
The players who have reportedly been arrested are Terrence Williams, Alan Anderson, Anthony Allen, Shannon Brown, William Bynum, Ronald Glen "Big Baby" Davis, Christopher Douglas-Roberts, Melvin Ely, Jamario Moon, Darius Miles, Milton Palacio, Ruben Patterson, Eddie Robinson, Gregory Smith, Sebastian Telfair, Charles Watson Jr., Antoine Wright, and Anthony Wroten.
Of the 18 defendants, Alan Anderson, Glen Davis, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Melvin Ely, Jamario Moon, Darius Miles, Ruben Patterson, and Sebastian Telfair all spent time with the Clippers at some point during their careers.
The multi-million-dollar health insurance fraud scheme was was reportedly an attempt use the NBA's benefit plan for personal wealth gain. The attempt to defraud the NBA Players' Health and Welfare Benefit Plan was performed by submitting fake reimbursement claims for medical procedures that actually never happened. The scheme reportedly totaled $3.9M in fraudulent proceeds.
One of the most common strategies use by the co-conspirators was to submit paperwork for dental procedures that never actually took place. According to the initial report, many of these false documents contained unusual formatting and grammatical errors that began raising suspicion that they were fraudulent.
Amongst the several errors made by the defendants were travel records that were inconsistent with their reported medical procedures. For example, one player was playing basketball oversees at the time of his reported medical procedure in the United States.
The investigation is reportedly ongoing, but there is no official indication that more arrests are expected to be made.
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