NEW YORK — Retired NBA player and former Utah Jazz assistant coach Keyon Dooling was sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud the league’s health and welfare benefit plan.
Court documents say Dooling, 42, and fellow NBA veteran Alan Anderson, 40, filed fraudulent claims with the NBA’s benefit plan and helped other former NBA players do the same.
“These former players recruited others to take part in this widespread fraud scheme and went to great lengths to keep the scheme running smoothly, facilitating hundreds of thousands of dollars of fraudulent claims,” said Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Dooling, who played 13 years in the NBA, joined former Jazz coach Quin Snyder’s staff as an assistant in September 2020 and was in that role at the time of his arrest in April 2022. Prior to his NBA career, he played for Snyder at the University of Missouri in 1998-2000.
Dooling, who participated in the scheme from 2017 to 2019, “traded on his reputation among current and former NBA players to refer other former NBA players” to his parters in the scheme, according to a news release.
The Orlando, Florida native submitted fraudulent invoices to the plan and received about $363,000 in reimbursements, while players he recruited received $194,295 in fraudulent proceeds, court documents state.
Anderson, who played eight seasons in the NBA, submitted about $121,000 in fraudulent claims to the benefit plan, while recruiting and facilitating the fraud of others for roughly $710,000, according to court documents. He was sentenced Feb. 10 to 24 months in prison for his role in the scheme.
In addition to their prison terms, Dooling was ordered to forfeit $449,250.50 and pay restitution of $547,495, while Anderson was ordered to forfeit $121,000 and pay restitution of $121,000.
Dooling and Anderson, of Las Vegas, had “managerial roles” within the scheme orchestrated by co-defendant Terrence Williams, court documents state.
Terrence Williams provided the former NBA players with fake invoices from a particular chiropractic office in California. He also obtained fraudulent invoices from a dentist affiliated with offices in Beverly Hills, California, and from a doctor at a wellness office in Washington state, court documents state.
“This office will continue to aggressively prosecute those engaged in health care fraud schemes, no matter what their profession,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “Those considering submitting false claims to health care plans should recognize that they will be subject to serious penalties.”
