More than a dozen retired NBA players have been indicted for defrauding a league health care plan, according to federal court records unsealed Thursday. Federal prosecutors allege that the 18 players – including Tony Allen, Glen Davis, Darius Miles and Sebastian Telfair – submitted fraudulent reimbursement claims for a total of $3.9 million between 2017 and 2020, and pocketed about $2.5 million in the process. Allen's wife, Desiree, has also been charged in connection with the scheme. In some instances, the defendants claimed to have received medical treatment on a specified date when, in fact, they were not even in the same state or country at the time, according to the indictment, which was filed in the Southern District of New York. In other cases, multiple ex-players sought reimbursement for the same treatment on the same date. Allen, Davis and Tony Wroten all claimed they had root canals on the same six teeth on the same date in 2016, for example. Allen and Wroten also claimed they got root canals on the same 13 teeth on the same date two years later. "The defendants' playbook involved fraud and deception," Audrey Strauss, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a news conference. "Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement partners, their alleged scheme has been disrupted and they will have to answer for their flagrant violations of law." Strauss said the FBI arrested 16 of the defendants Thursday morning. One of the defendants, Telfair, was due to appear in a New York courtroom later Thursday. The others will appear in the districts in which they were arrested, she said. The scheme was orchestrated by Terrence Williams, the No. 11 overall pick in the 2009 draft. Strauss referred to hiim as "the linchpin." #nba #news #sports #terrencewilliams