( 📸: Brittish Williams Instagram)
Cousins! Former ‘Basketball Wives’ cast member Brittish Williams has been sentenced to four years in prison following her involvement in a long list of fraudulent acts. Despite pleading guilty to a total of fifteen felonies over the past few years, her legal team declares that she was treated unfairly due to her status as a celebrity!
“Brittish Williams was punished today, not for fraud, but for her celebrity, says her attorney, Beau Brindley, to PEOPLE. “The Court chose to treat her more harshly due to her status as a public figure rather than treating similarly situated defendants equally.”
Court documents indicate that Brittish was involved in tax fraud, bank fraud, insurance fraud, and pandemic-related scams. She has since pleaded guilty to five counts of misuse of a Social Security number, four counts of bank fraud, three counts of making false statements to the IRS, and three counts of wire fraud.
“Ms. Williams success is not a crime subject to enhanced penalty. And we will challenge this sentence through every legal means available,” says Brindley.
Reports read that along with Brittish’s four-year sentence, she will be placed on supervised release for five years following her stay in prison. She will also be ordered to pay $564,069 in restitution.
“You knew what you were doing. You knew it was wrong and you did it anyway,” said U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey to Brittish during her Tuesday sentencing hearing.
“Not only are you out there for people to watch your entertainment, but also for people to watch you. … That’s a big obligation,” Autrey said, per Riverfront News.
Within a forwarded plea agreement, Brittish admitted to under-reporting her income on tax returns from 2017-2019, falsely asserting a niece and nephew as dependents, which helped her to avoid paying $29,366 in taxes.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office attorney says that Brittish also “fraudulently used Social Security numbers not assigned to her to open accounts with credit card companies and banks,” racking up $28,537 on accounts she did not pay.
Brittish is said to have further used the same social security numbers to commit bank fraud after she deposited checks and withdrew the money from the victims and racked up nearly $24,000.
Court documents obtained by PEOPLE detail that Brittish submitted multiple applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans — which were intended to help struggling businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also falsified her business income, payroll, and her criminal history. This is said to have resulted in $144,400 from loans, she used to pay for her everyday living expenses.
She also received $52,647 from four Paycheck Protection Program loans.
Following news of her sentencing Brittish took to Instagram with a photo alongside her daughter with a caption that read, “Forever me and you”