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18 ex-NBA players charged in $4 mn health fraud scheme

AFP

Eighteen former NBA players have been charged with allegedly defrauding the league’s health insurance scheme of almost $4 million, New York prosecutors said Thursday.

The prosecutors accuse Terrence Williams, who played for the New Jersey Nets and Houston Rockets, of orchestrating the fraud, in which they say he received kickbacks totaling $230,000.

Glen “Big Baby” Davis, who was part of the Boston Celtics side that won the 2008 NBA Championship, and Tony Allen — a six-time NBA All-Defensive Team member — were also charged in the scheme that allegedly ran from at least 2017 to last year.

According to the indictment, the accused defrauded the NBA player’s health and welfare benefit plan by submitting false reimbursement claims for medical and dental services that had not been carried out.

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Prosecutors with the Southern District of New York (SDNY) say Williams recruited other players to the scheme by offering to give them fake invoices to support their fraudulent claims.

He “was the scheme’s linchpin,” lead prosecutor Audrey Strauss told reporters, adding that he tried to intimidate a player who didn’t pay him a kickback by impersonating an employee from the insurance plan.

The indictment alleges that the accused submitted false claims totaling $3.9 million and that the players received about $2.5 million in fraudulent payouts.

Strauss said that in some instances the co-conspirators had submitted false claims for the same root canal treatment on the same teeth on the same day.

The players were all charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud. Williams was also charged with aggravated identity theft.

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Other players charged include former Los Angeles Lakers guard Shannon Brown, Sebastian Telfair, who played for several NBA teams including the Cleveland Cavaliers, and ex-Los Angeles Clippers pick Darius Miles.

Allen’s wife was also charged. Fifteen of the 19 accused were arrested Thursday around the country with Allen, Christopher Douglas-Roberts, Gregory Smith and Eddie Robinson still at large, the SDNY said.

Telfair was due to appear in court in New York later Thursday.

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FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

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UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

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Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.