‘Basketball Wives’ Star Brittish Williams Ordered to Pay Over Half a Million Dollars For Committing 15 Felonies
‘Basketball Wives’ Star Brittish Williams Ordered to Pay Over Half a Million Dollars For Committing 15 Felonies
Basketball Wives star, Brittish Williams, was ordered to pay over half a million dollars as part of her sentence for committing multiple felonies relating to fraud.
According to court documents that stated that Williams was ordered to pay $564,069.13 in restitution in addition to her four-year prison sentence.
U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey told Williams in his reprimand — “You knew what you were doing. You knew it was wrong and you did it anyway.”
The high profile case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration and the FBI.
The 33-year-old pled guilty to a total of 15 felonies, five counts of Social Security number misuse, four counts of bank fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and three counts of making false statements to the IRS. The former reality star will be on supervised release for five years after serving her time behind bars.
Williams confessed to underreporting her income for the tax years 2017-2019 and to falsely claiming a niece and nephew as dependents, the Department of Justice reported. She also “fraudulently used Social Security numbers not assigned to her to open accounts with credit card companies and banks” and falsified financial information in nine submitted applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans.
U.S. Attorney, Sayler A. Fleming, said that the VH1 personality admitted to an “unusually large number of frauds that victimized taxpayers, banks, credit card companies, individuals and programs that were intended to help struggling businesses and employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Her plea agreement stated that the former reality star received $144,000 in loans from two disaster applications to “fund her personal lifestyle.” She took in $52,647 in PPP loans and $27,801 in rental assistance, despite not reducing her work hours during the pandemic.
Special Agent in Charge, Jay Greenberg of the FBI St. Louis Division, labeled the fallen reality star a “typical fraudster” following the sentencing.
He said — “After today’s sentencing, her reality is now a life of a felon.”
Inspector General for the Social Security Administration, Gail S. Ennis, said that Williams’ sentence confirmed a “commitment to hold accountable those who intentionally misuse Social Security numbers for their own personal gain.”
She said — “Ms. Williams’ criminal actions brought financial harm upon individuals, businesses, and government programs, damages the integrity of Social Security numbers. I thank the FBI and the IRS-CI for their investigative efforts, and I thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Special Assistant United States Attorney Diane Klocke for prosecuting this case.”
Brittish Williams joined the VH1 reality show in Season 3, after she and Lorenzo Gordon, who played pro basketball overseas, got engaged. Williams was banned from attending a cast trip to Mexico after she was ordered to wear an ankle monitor after her arrest.
Basketball Wives documents the lives of wives, exes and girlfriends of professional basketball players.
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Avigail is an Entertainment blogger at All About The Tea, who specializes in The Real Housewives of Atlanta and The Real Housewives of Potomac. Avigail has a background in marketing. She’s a Brooklynite living in the Bahamas, with a passion for travel, writing, reality TV watching, pop culture and spoken word.