Ex-NBA lottery pick gets 10-year prison sentence in fraud case

Former NBA journeyman Terrence Williams got the wrong kind of 10-year deal on Thursday.

The 2009 first-round pick was sentenced to a decade in prison after defrauding the NBA’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan, according to a report from the Associated Press. The plan provides healthcare benefits to eligible current and former NBA players and their spouses.

Williams was also forced to forfeit $650,000 of ill-gotten profits and to pay restitution worth $2.5 million. Williams had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in 2022.

From 2017 to 2021, Williams ran an operation that generated fictitious medical claims on behalf of former NBA players. He conspired with medical professionals — a California dentist and doctors from California and Washington state — in order to create fake invoices. The fraudulent medical invoices were then processed by administrative workers that Williams had recruited to join the scheme.

18 former NBA players were named as participants in the fraud. 13 of them have pleaded guilty to the charges. However, a handful of those players already sentenced will not have to serve prison time.

New York Judge Valerie E. Caproni, who gave the sentence, called Williams “yet another [basketball] player who frittered away substantial earnings.” She said that Williams should have had enough money to be “set for life” had he not mismanaged his finances.

Williams was drafted as the 11th overall pick by the New Jersey Nets in 2009. He spent parts of four seasons with the Nets, Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings and Boston Celtics. He earned roughly $7 million throughout his four-year NBA career.