18 former players accused of fraud

Greg Smith had been out of the NBA for about two years in December 2018 when the former power forward for the Rockets and Dallas Mavericks had what appeared to be a long day at a dental office in Beverly Hills. Invoices submitted on his behalf showed that he received IV sedation and root canals and had crowns placed on eight teeth.

But the invoices, totaling $47,900, were fake, federal prosecutors in the New York City borough of Manhattan said Thursday.

Smith was actually thousands of miles away, playing basketball in Taiwan at the time, the prosecutors said. They had evidence to prove it, including box scores.

Smith was one of 18 former NBA players charged in what federal authorities portrayed as a brazen conspiracy to defraud a health care program extended to current and former NBA players.

The claims submitted by another defendant, former Brooklyn high school legend Sebastian Telfair, suggested truly woeful dental problems. His claims showed he had received root canals on 17 teeth in a year’s time, the indictment said.

Telfair, a cousin of former NBA star Stephon Marbury, pleaded not guilty Thursday and was released on bail.

The prosecutors said the former players — and one player’s wife — submitted claims totaling $3.9 million and got about $2.5 million in fraudulent proceeds.

The defendants include six-time All-Defensive Team selection Tony Allen and Glen “Big Baby” Davis, who played on the Boston Celtics’ 2008 title team, and Allen’s wife.

Another defendant, Terrence Williams, who prosecutors said orchestrated the scheme, received kickbacks of at least $230,000 from 10 of the former players accused of participating, the indictment said.

The defendants each were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, and Williams also was charged with aggravated identity theft. The conspiracy count carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

According to the indictment, Williams first submitted a fraudulent claim seeking reimbursement of $19,000 for services he purportedly received from a chiropractor in Encino, Calif. After the claim was approved and he received $7,672, he began to recruit others, the indictment said.

Some of the medical claims made by the former players were identical, straining credulity, prosecutors suggested.

Davis, Allen and a third defendant, Tony Wroten, for example, claimed to have had root canals on the same six teeth on the same date in April 2016 — and crowns on those teeth a month later.

Some of the claims filed as part of the scheme resulted in large reimbursements, prosecutors said. Four of the former players were each paid more than $200,000 after claiming to have visited the same chiropractor Williams had, according to the indictment. One of the four, Shannon Brown, received $320,000.

But the nearly $4 million that prosecutors said the defendants sought in the scheme is still a fraction of the $343 million they earned in their NBA careers, not counting endorsements and overseas earnings. NBA