Basketball Wives’ Brittish Williams Shut Down in Appeal of 4-Year Prison Sentence Over Alleged Fraud

Basketball Wives star Brittish Williams lost her effort to have her four year prison sentence vacated due to her claims the judge treated her unfairly, In Touch can exclusively report.

According to court documents obtained by In Touch, the United States Court of Appeals denied Brittish’s plea to to be resentenced. The order said, “The district court did not abuse its discretion” when considering Brittish’s “celebrity” during sentencing.

In the reality star’s appeal documents, Brittish laid out her case for her prison sentence to be reviewed. In May 2023, Brittish reached a plea deal with prosecutors as part of the federal criminal case filed against her.

The government accused Brittish of tax, bank and wire fraud.

At her sentencing in October 2023, the judge ordered Brittish to serve four years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. The court also ordered her to pay back $565,000.

At the hearing, the judge told Brittish, “You knew what you were doing. You knew it was wrong and you did it anyway.”

“The defendant launched a scheme that led to a variety of financial crimes including tax fraud, bank fraud, COVID loan fraud and identity theft,” said one agent who worked on the case. “Ms. Williams displayed a blatant disregard for the victims of her deceit. Financial crimes of this magnitude deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

Brittish was ordered to serve her time in Alderson FPC prison in West Virginia.

Brittish quickly filed an appeal of the sentence.

Her lawyer argued, “Brittish Williams appeals her 48-month sentence imposed following a guilty plea. The district court calculated a higher Guidelines range than that explicitly agreed to by the parties, and failed to acknowledge Ms. Williams’s arguments that the negotiated range in the plea agreement should be given some consideration as it was explicitly a basis for the entry of the plea.”

Her lawyer also claimed Brittish was treated unfairly due to her fame.

He said, “The district court also improperly sentenced Ms. Williams based on her status as a reality tv celebrity, finding that she was more worthy of punishment because she failed to live up to the court’s ideal of a role model that it believed should be fulfilled by all public figures. This resulted in a sentencing process that Ms. Williams now contends was unreasonable and she asks that her sentence thus be vacated.”

Her lawyer argued, “Regardless of what the court privately believed a celebrity should be, it is inappropriate to punish a criminal defendant for failing to live up to that standard that it would not impose upon the average defendant. Ms. Williams was not a public official or civil servant. She wasn’t holding herself out as a role model or moral guide.”

He added, “She was a reality tv star and entertainer. The standard she should be compared against is no different from the standard that a plumber or pilot should be held to.”

Brittish’s lawyer continued, “The district court chose to treat her differently than it would treat any other similarly-situated defendant, and explicitly so. The district court explained that it believed that Ms. Williams had obligations to the public that other citizens do not have and, solely by virtue of her fame, her failure to meet those obligations made her more deserving of punishment than an identical defendant with less fame.”

He added, “This is not okay.” The government asked the higher court to deny Brittish’s appeal. The prosecutors scoffed at the suggestion that the reality star was treated unfairly due to her being famous.

In September, the higher court took the case under review. The decision to deny Brittish’s appeal was entered on December 31.