Darius Miles, who was the highest-ever National Basketball Association draft pick to come straight out of high school when he joined the Los Angeles Clippers in 2000, avoided a prison sentence for participating in a fraud scheme aimed at the league’s health care plan, Bloomberg News reported. Miles was given three years’ probation yesterday by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan. He pleaded guilty in June and had faced a possible sentence of around two years in prison. The scheme’s ringleader, Terrence Williams, who was the 11th overall pick in the 2009 draft, was given a 10-year prison term in August. Miles was arguably the most famous of the 18 former NBA players charged in October 2021 with defrauding the health plan out of more than $5 million. They were accused of submitting false claims for medical and dental procedures they never received from 2017 to 2021. Many of those charged pleaded guilty, including Williams. Another high-profile player, Glen “Big Baby” Davis, who won a championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008, was found guilty by a jury in New York last week.
