Three former National Football League (NFL) players, including two-time Pro Bowl running back Clinton Portis, are the latest to plead guilty for their roles in a nationwide scheme to defraud a health care benefit program for retired NFL players, according to a news release from the U.S. Justice Department.
Portis, 40, of Fort Mill, S.C., and Tamarick Vanover, 47, of Tallahassee, Fla., pleaded guilty on Friday. Robert McCune, 40, of Riverdale, Ga., pleaded guilty on Aug. 24, the DOJ said.
The men are part of a ring of 15 former players who have pleaded guilty in connection with the scheme to defraud the Gene Upshaw NFL Player Health Reimbursement Account Plan (the Plan), which was established in 2006 to help retired players, their spouses and their dependents cover medical expense, up to a maximum of $350,000 per player. The coverage provided for tax-free reimbursement of out-of-pocket medical care expenses that were not covered by insurance.
According to the Justice Department, McCune, a former NFL linebacker who played for the Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Ravens from 2005 to 2008, was the ringleader of the scheme, which resulted in about $2.9 million in false and fraudulent claims being submitted to the plan and the plan paying out about $2.5 million on those claims between June 2017 and April 2018.
Portis, who played nine seasons for the Washington Redskins and Denver Broncos, earned two Pro Bowl selections during a career that spanned from 2002 to 2010. The DOJ said he caused the submission of false and fraudulent claims to the plan over a two-month period, obtaining $99,264 in benefits for expensive medical equipment that was never purchased or received, the DOJ said.
Vanover, a wide receiver who played six seasons for the Kansas City Chief and San Diego Chargers, recruited three other retired NFL players to join in the scheme by offering to cause the submission of false and fraudulent claims in exchange for kickbacks and bribes that ranged from a few thousand dollars to $10,000 or more per claim submitted, obtaining $159,510 for expensive medical equipment that was never purchased, the DOJ said.
The DOJ said the medical equipment listed on the fraudulent claims included hyperbaric oxygen chambers, cryotherapy machines, ultrasound machines designed for use by a doctor’s office to conduct women’s health examinations and electromagnetic therapy devices designed for use on horses.
Portis and Vanover pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and agreed to pay full restitution to the plan, the DOJ said. Portis is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 6 and Vanover is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 22. They each face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The court document noted that the pleas came two days after a trial against the men resulted in a hung jury and a mistrial on certain counts against Vanover. It said a retrial on the charges against Portis and Vanover had been scheduled to begin Tuesday.