He was sentenced in January to two years in prison for his role in a fraud scheme, but not before lodging an intriguing defence tactic.
Back in October 2021, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, announced a series of indictments of former NBA players. For their participation in a scheme said in the announcement to have been organised by former New Jersey Nets, Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets forward Terrence Williams, the indictments charged 18 veterans (and one spouse) for taking part in a widespread scheme to defraud the NBA Players’ Health and Welfare Benefit Plan, by submitting fraudulent claims for reimbursement of medical and dental services that were not actually rendered.
The players in the indictment read like a Who’s Who of turn-of-the-century role players. In total, Williams, Alan Anderson, Tony Allen, Shannon Brown, Will Bynum, Glen Davis, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Melvin Ely, Jamario Moon, Darius Miles, Milt Palacio, Ruben Patterson, Eddie Robinson, Greg Smith, Sebastian Telfair, C.J. Watson, Antoine Wright and Tony Wroten were all charged; two and a half years later, their cases remain at various stages of completion.
Curiously, though, the report of the indictment listed Douglas-Roberts’s name alongside the disclaimer ‘A.K.a “supreme Bey”’ [sic]. Douglas-Roberts’s intent to reinvent and rebrand himself under this new name had been documented in profile pieces about his career going back to at least 2017, yet the inclusion of this soubriquet in a formal release about his indictment suggests he had taken (or wanted to take) the steps to make the change a legal one, rather than merely anecdotal.
