Ex-Boston Celtics' Glen "Big Baby" Davis Sentenced to 3.5 Years in Federal Prison for His Part in a Scheme to Defraud The NBA
USA Today - Former NBA player Glen "Big Baby" Davis was sentenced to 40 months in prison on Thursday for defrauding the league's healthcare plan.
The 38-year-old Davis was also sentenced to three years of supervised release.
In November, Davis was found guilty of health care fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to make false statements and conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud and faced 20 years in prison.
What a shame. I was always a fan of Big Baby Davis. It's impossible for me to not cheer for a fat athlete. They're an inspiration to us all. I've never been overweight myself. I have more of a "skinny looking on the verge of death" vibe. But it's still inspiring to see a man defy the odds. The world tells us in order to succeed in professional sports on the highest level it's imperative to be in tip top shape. That you have to wake up and hit the gym at 5am every morning and eat nothing but healthy protein-rich low fat meals. I suppose I don't know for sure that Big Baby wasn't doing that. Maybe he just has the worst metabolism in the history of metabolisms. But I'm fairly confident he was more of a fatty meats and ice cream type of guy. It's good to see the big boys go toe-to-toe with athletes at the highest level.
Similarly to his diet, Glen Davis has never quite able to keep his nose clean legally speaking either. Who could forget back in 2018 when Big Baby was popped with nearly $100k cash, 126 grams of weed, a whole mess of quarter pound baggies, and as any "non-drug dealing" person keeps on him at all time, a ledger of names.
To be fair to Mr. Davis, as he said in his legendary "don't believe everything you read on the internet" video (that he opted to film next to a briefcase full of cash and box of Popeyes Chicken) he was in fact an innocent man. He would have his day in court.
Turns out he never did get that day in court. He was able to cut a deal that kept him out of jail. Then of course there was that one time during his playing days where he tried to check into a hotel, the hotel told him there were no rooms available, and he proceeded the rip the keyboard from the front desk computer and heave it across the lobby.
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The man has a temper. The man likes to do illegal shit. Once again, Glen's illegal activities have landed him in trouble. This time he did get his day in court. This time he is going to prison.
Federal authorities said that Davis and others defrauded an insurance plan for NBA players and family members of more than $5 million in a scheme that lasted at least four years. The players would make false claims for dental services and various medical care, but those services were never provided.
Davis submitted a total of $132,000 worth of claims, including saying he got $27,200 worth of dental work at Beverly Hills dental office on October 2, 2018. Authorities said he was actually in Las Vegas at the time and flew to Paris that same day, using the geolocation data for his cellphone to prove it.
You can't be doing that nowadays. Can't be lying about getting $27,200 of dental work done. This is certainly going to make me sound stupid, but why would the authorities need to track his phone from Las Vegas to Paris in order to catch him for that? Couldn't they just call the dentist and ask, "Hey did a 6'9" 300 pound dude just come in and get a year's worth of cavities filled? No? Ok thank you." Seems like the investigators did a bit of unnecessary work to the get to the bottom of that case. But regardless, Davis was caught and is now staring in the face of 3.5 years in federal prison.
Glen Davis isn't the only person who was caught up in this. This was all part of a scheme to defraud the NBA that goes back to last year. A whole mess of NBA players were making false insurance claims. Ex-Nets guard Terrance Williams is already in the midst of a 10-year sentence for being the brains behind the whole operation. Additionally, Will Bynum was sentenced to 18 months.
Davis was one of more than 20 people convicted in the case, including ringleader and former NBA player Terrance Williams, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Another NBA player, Will Bynum, received an 18-month prison sentence last month for making false statements to the NBA Players’ Health And Welfare Benefit Plan and was ordered to pay nearly $183,000 in restitution.
Ex-player's Keyon Dooling, and Alan Anderson have been sentenced as well.
Glen Davis himself submitted over $127,000 worth of false claims. In total, this group of players defrauded the NBA out of more than $5 million. That's no small potatoes. That's Mason Plumlee money.
Pour one out for Big Baby Davis and the rest of the former NBA players who were caught trying to skirt the system. I'm likely wrong on this, because there must be some people who get away with it, but I feel as if insurance fraud has a 0% success rate. That shit always comes back to bite people in the ass. Everything is on record. There's always a paper trail.
I could do the whole "Why the fuck would Glen Davis need to do this, he made over $32M in career earnings blah blah blah." But that's such a tired take. We all know ex-athletes are quite often terrible money mangers. So I'll opt to give a bad take an defend these guys instead. Fuck the NBA. They should have paid you more. Big Baby was getting minutes on an NBA Championship Celtics team in a year he made $500k. Now we got dudes who don't even sniff the court making millions to play the role of "cone" in practice. You were a REAL player Glen. You had a nickname and everything. At least for a minute. You deserve that money. FREE GLEN!!!