Former NBA players charged with health care fraud
Eighteen former NBA players were charged Thursday with pocketing about $2.5 million illegally by defrauding the league’s health and welfare benefit plan in a scam that authorities said involved claiming fictitious medical and dental expenses.
“The defendants’ playbook involved fraud and deception,” U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss told a news conference after FBI agents across the country arrested 15 explayers and one of their wives in a three-year conspiracy that authorities say started in 2017.
According to an indictment returned in Manhattan federal court, the ex-players teamed up to defraud the supplemental coverage plan by submitting fraudulent claims to get reimbursed for medical and dental procedures that never happened.
Strauss said prosecutors have travel records, email and GPS data that proves the explayers were sometimes far from the medical and dental offices at the times when they were supposedly getting treated. In one instance, she said, an ex-player was playing basketball in Taiwan when he supposedly was getting $48,000 worth of root canals and crowns on eight teeth at a Beverly Hills, Calif., dental office in December 2018. The indictment said the scheme was carried out from at least 2017 to 2020.
More pro basketball
The Brooklyn Nets listed Kyrie Irving as ineligible to play Friday in their home exhibition game, another strong indication he has not met New York’s vaccination requirement. Irving has not been with the Nets for any of their practices in New York, where professional athletes are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to practice or play. The Nets are prevented by law from revealing whether he has been vaccinated, but listed him as “ineligible to play” in the injury report for their preseason game Friday against Milwaukee.
• Herb Turetzky retired after spending 54 years as the official scorer of the Nets franchise in two leagues and two states. The only scorer in franchise history, Turetzky worked more than 2,200 games, earning a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for most professional basketball games scored.
Olympics
Chicago winger Patrick Kane and defenseman Seth Jones and Toronto center Auston Matthews were the first three players named to the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team.
Golf
Jon Rahm made a strong start on his return to Spain, shooting an 8-under 63 in the first round of the Spanish Open in Madrid. Rahm, who started on the 10th hole, was two shots behind clubhouse leader Ross McGowan, an Englishman who had eight birdies and an eagle in a 10-under round.
• Sung Kang found the missing piece to his game and put everything together in the Shriners Children’s Open for a 10-under 61 that gave him a two-shot lead after the first round in Las Vegas.
• Jin Young Ko ran off six birdies over a seven-hole stretch on the back nine for an 8-under 63 on Thursday to build a three-shot lead in the Cognizant Founders Cup in West Caldwell, N.J.
Soccer
Ricardo Pepi got two goals early in the second half, becoming at 18 the youngest American to score in consecutive World Cup qualifiers, and the United States dominated Jamaica in a 2-0 victory in Austin, Texas.
• A federal magistrate judge in Nevada sided with Cristiano Ronaldo’s lawyers against a woman who sued for more than the $375,000 in hush money she received in 2010 after saying the international star raped her in Las Vegas.