Tony Allen and Glen Davis did what?
If you are going to break the law, you need to at least try to come up with a decent plan with some plausible deniability.
You may have heard that 18 former NBA players — mostly of the journeyman and role player variety — were indicted in federal court today in Manhattan. The players have allegedly filed false medical and dental claims and pocketed around $2.5 million in total. Each player (and one current Blazers’ assistant coach), are charged with “conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, which carries the potential penalty of up to 20 years in prison.”
The mastermind is reportedly Terrance Williams, the no. 11 pick of the 2009 NBA Draft. Williams apparently submitted a false claim for some chiropractic work, got a little bit of cash, and started a little black-market side hustle. Williams is alleged to have pocketed an additional $230K in kickbacks from his co-conspirators. You can read more about the whole affair right here.
The news touched off the typical Twitter parade of fire. There was a graphic with balls. There were prison jokes. There was suggested video evidence. You know, the usual Twitter stuff.
We’re not far removed from NFL players being caught in a similar fraud scandal, which included the purchase of expensive medical equipment, including, “electromagnetic therapy devices designed for use on horses.”
I’m not going to advocate for breaking the law. It’s not a great idea. However, if you are going to break the law, you need to at least try to come up with a decent plan with some plausible deniability. Namely, you’ve got to do better than you and your buddies submitting claims for root canals on the same day, at the same time, at the same place, and ON THE SAME TEETH. Come on, guys.
Also unwise — submitting a claim for dental work in Beverly Hills when you’re playing a basketball game in Taiwan. When you read about some of the other fatal flaws — no letterhead on the forms, odd formatting, and grammatical errors — you wonder how this went on so long (the fraud allegedly began in 2017). I worked for a guy once who was… uh… inconsistent in his bookkeeping and it took the IRS about 9 months to knock on his door. After the IRS left, he put his head down on his desk and said, “this is how they got Capone.”
And he’s right, you can’t do shady stuff with money and mess around with the government.
Unless, of course, you are a billionaire. Then, you get to fudge a little bit. OK, a lot.
What if I told you that some of the NBA’s billionaires — principal controlling partners for the Sixers, Hawks and Rockets — have deep ties to a private equity firm called Apollo Global. Fine so far, right? Well, what if Apollo’s founder, Leon Black, was being investigated for paying Jeffrey Epstein $158 million?
It’s true. A guy much smarter and much more connected told me.
Here’s where I need to point you to the very excellent work of one Henry Abbott. You may know Henry as the founder of TrueHoop, the wonderful basketball blog/network/platform that was hosted on ESPN for many years and has been reborn. Henry and his team have been investigating what NBA billionaires do with their money and power, and what he has discovered is unsettling at best.
You’ve got to decide if you want to journey down the rabbit hole. You need to subscribe in order to read all the articles. But I guarantee you, this piddly bit of NBA journeyman healthcare fraud — serious though it may be — pales in comparison to what Henry has found.