Big Baby was a big cheater, feds charge

Ronald Glen "Big Baby" Davis, who played on the last Celtics championship team,ay in 2008, was among 18 former NBA players indicted on charges they defrauded the league's health benefits plan, which covers both current players and retirees like him.

Davis and the others allegedly received a total of $2.5 million in payments on bogus health claims to the plan between 2017 and 2020, according to the indictment, unsealed today in federal court in Manhattan, NBC News first reported. The plan covers medical expenses not otherwise covered by the former players' regular health insurance.

Also named: Tony Allen, who played with Davis on the Celtics in 2008.

The indictment alleges that Big Baby submitted a $27,000 claim for crowns on eight teeth that he allegedly had put in on Oct. 2, 2018, at a Beverly Hills dentist. Only problem: Davis was not in Beverly Hills then - the feds have airline records showing he flew from Las Vegas to Paris that day, and that they have phone GPS records showing that before he arrived in Las Vegas for his flight, he'd been in Utah.

Former Nets player Terrance Williams is charged with recruiting the others into a scheme in which he supplied them with fake medical invoices to submit to the plan - allegedly from a chiropractor and dentist in California and a medical practice in Washington state specializing in "sexual health, anti-aging and general well being," according to the indictment.

The players allegedly paid Williams some $230,000 in kickbacks on their successful claims - the feds charge that the ring actualy submitted closer to $4 million in bills, but not all were paid.

Davis was given fake chiropractic bills between 2017 and 2019, according to the indictment, which adds that one of the ring members got Davis a fake "letter of medical necessity" from one doctor to go with his fake bills in 2019.

Innocent, etc.