Former Utah Jazz player arrested by federal authorities
By Matt Giles
An ex-Utah Jazz guard is among 18 NBA alums on a list of alleged scammers.
According to an article on Thursday morning from Jonathan Dienst, Tom Winter, and David K. Li of NBC News, 18 retired NBA players now face federal charges for an alleged “attempt to defraud the NBA’s Health and Welfare Benefit Plan of nearly $4 million.”
One of those players is Milt Palacio, whose last of seven NBA seasons came as a member of the Utah Jazz. The 6-foot-3 guard started 18 of the 71 games he appeared in for that 2005-06 team, which finished 41-41 and is one of only eight Utah Jazz squads in the past 38 seasons to have missed the playoffs.
Palacio averaged a career-high 6.2 points to go along with 2.7 assists in 19.4 minutes per game with the Jazz.
Details about the charge the former Utah Jazz guard and others face
Per NBC News, the other 17 men facing “a count of conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud” are Terrence Williams, Sebastian Telfair, Glen Davis, Antoine Wright, Darius Miles, CJ Watson, Ruben Patterson, Eddie Robinson, Greg Smith, Jamario Moon, Alan Anderson, Tony Allen, William Bynum, Shannon Brown, Melvin Ely, Chris Douglas-Roberts, and Tony Wroten.
U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss referred to Terrence Williams as the “scheme’s linchpin” but said the following to reporters about all of the defendants:
“The defendants’ playbook involved fraud and deception. They will have to answer for their flagrant violations of law.”
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Altogether, according to what officials told NBC News, the defendants received $2.5 million of the $3.9 million they submitted in fake claims in recent years. Many of the alleged claims seem to be for dental work, and the indictment noted some fake invoices and forms were evident because “they are not on letterhead, they contain unusual formatting, they have grammatical errors.”