KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Kermit Washington, a former Vancouver business owner and Portland Trail Blazer, has been sentenced to six years in federal prison for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in charity donations on vacations, shopping sprees and plastic surgery for his girlfriend.
The U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release that the 66-year-old Las Vegas man was also ordered Monday to pay nearly $970,000 in restitution after pleading guilty in November to making a false statement in a tax return and aggravated identity theft.
Washington, who owned Vancouver restaurant Le Slam from 1995 until it closed in 2001, played for several NBA teams in the 1970s and 1980s. He is best known for throwing a punch that fractured Houston Rockets player Rudy Tomjanovich’s face and left him unconscious during a 1977 game. Washington was playing for the Los Angeles Lakers at the time.
Prosecutors accused Washington of using his position as representative of the National Basketball Players Association to refer professional athletes to Ronald Jack Mix, a Pro Football Hall of Famer and San Diego lawyer who specialized in workers’ compensation cases. Mix filed workers’ compensation cases for the athletes then donated about $155,000 to Washington’s charity, The Sixth Man Foundation, which did business as Project Contact Africa. Donors were told the charity was supporting work in Africa, including a medical clinic for needy families and HIV-positive children.
