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David Purdum
portland trail blazers Coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard terry rosier and former cleveland cavaliers Players and assistant coaches damon jones A pair of arrests have been made as part of a wide-ranging investigation into illegal sports betting and Mafia-backed poker games, authorities announced Thursday.
Billups and Rozier have been placed on leave from their teams, the NBA said in a statement.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the years-long investigation covering 11 states resulted in a total of 34 arrests and involved millions of dollars. Law enforcement officials said many of the charges involved four Mafia families and organized crime networks, with Patel saying of the money involved that “the fraud is mind-boggling.”
Rozier, who was arrested Thursday morning at a hotel in Orlando, Florida, is accused of participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using insider information about the NBA. As part of the scheme, gamblers used non-public information to place bets on at least seven NBA games between March 2023 and March 2024. charlotte hornets, orlando magictrail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers And Toronto RaptorsAccording to the indictment. According to the indictment, in three of the seven games, players intentionally removed themselves from contests to benefit gamblers’ bets.
According to the indictment, the defendants had “access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches” that could potentially affect the outcome of the game or the players’ performance and they provided that information to the other conspirators in exchange for a fixed fee or a share of the betting profits.
“Let’s not mince words,” Patel said. “This is an insider trading saga for the NBA, that’s what it is.”
Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting was widely legalized in the United States.”
Billups, who was arrested in Oregon, is accused in a separate indictment of an elaborate scheme to rig underground poker games backed by Mafia families, authorities said. The defendants are accused of using technology to steal millions from victims in the New York area, Nocella said.
Additionally, although Billups was not named in the sports betting indictment, the description of a conspirator who allegedly told a bettor that several Trail Blazers players would miss a March 2023 game, his playing and coaching career matches that of Billups.
Billups and Rozier have been indicted on charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy and are expected to make initial court appearances Thursday in Oregon and Florida, respectively. Prosecutors, in their detention memorandum, asked a judge to impose “substantial bail conditions” on all defendants in the poker rigging case and said Billups has “substantial financial resources.”
The NBA said both have been placed on “immediate leave” from their teams.
“We take these allegations extremely seriously and the integrity of our game is our top priority,” the league said in a statement.
Trail Blazers assistant Tiago Splitter will serve as interim head coach. Portland canceled its previously planned practice availability with reporters Thursday afternoon.
“We are aware of the allegations involving head coach Chauncey Billups and the Trail Blazers are cooperating fully with the investigation,” the Trail Blazers said in a statement.
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Shams: Terry Rozier, Chauncey Billups sent on immediate leave by NBA
Shams Charania reports Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups have been placed on immediate leave by the NBA.
According to Nocella, six defendants are accused of involvement in the sports betting case, while 31 defendants are allegedly involved in rigging poker games. Three people, including Jones, were named as defendants in both cases. In addition to Rozier and Jones, bookmakers Eric Ernest, Marves Fairley, Shane Hannon and DeNiro Laster were named as defendants in the sports betting indictment.
ESPN previously reported that Fairley is involved Gambling gang targeting college basketball gamesHennen was arrested in January at the Las Vegas airport, where he was attempting to board an international flight.
Before March 23, 2023, games against New Orleans PelicansAccording to the indictment, Rozier, who played for the Hornets at the time, allegedly told his childhood friend Laster that he would remove himself from the game in the first quarter due to an alleged injury. Laster allegedly sold the information to two speculators for approximately $100,000.
According to the indictment, those bettors, along with their associates and a network of proxy bettors, used the information to place bets on Rozier’s under. According to the indictment, the money at stake was in lakhs. Several bets were won after Rozier removed himself from the game after nine minutes with 5 points, 2 assists and 4 rebounds.
According to the indictment, Rozier paid for Laster to travel to Philadelphia to collect the proceeds from the scheme, and then drove to his home to count the money with Rozier.
Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, said in a statement that his client is “not a gambler” and “is eager to win this fight.”
“The integrity of the game is paramount for NBA players, but the presumption of innocence is also paramount, and both are hindered when a player’s popularity is abused to attract attention,” a National Basketball Players Association spokesperson said in a statement. “We will ensure that our members are protected through this process and provide them with due process rights.”
According to the indictment, Jones, who played and coached for the Cavaliers and served as an unofficial assistant coach for the Lakers during the 2022-23 NBA season, allegedly sold inside information to bookmakers. Jones had a close relationship with “A dominant NBA player” According to the filing, he had access to insider information during his time with the Cavaliers and Lakers and through that relationship.
The player is not named in the indictment, but a source told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin it was the Lakers star Lebron James,
Before the Lakers game against milwaukee bucks On February 9, 2023, Jones messaged a conspirator to “make a big bet on Milwaukee tonight” because the key player was out. James did not play in that game, which the Lakers lost.
A source close to James told ESPN that James was unaware of any gambling activity by Jones. James has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
A month later, a defendant referred to as “Co-conspirator 8” allegedly told a bookmaker that the Trail Blazers would be underpowered and that several of their best players would not play in the March 24, 2023 game. Chicago BullsFour of Portland’s regular players did not play as the Trail Blazers lost by 28.
Co-conspirator 8 was not named in the indictment but described him as matching Billups.
The case relates to a betting scandal involving former Raptors center Jonte Porter, who was banned from the NBA in the spring of 2024 and is awaiting sentencing for his role in a gambling scheme surrounding player prop bets. Porter admitted in court to manipulating his performance in two games during the 2023–24 season. Two conspirators in the Porter case, Ammar Avvadeh and Hennen, were also named as defendants in the poker indictment on Thursday.
In the poker case, Billups and Jones are accused of using their celebrity to entice people to play a poker game that was rigged by the Mafia, Nocella said. According to Nocella, organizers allegedly used “sophisticated cheating technologies”, including shuffling machines that could read the cards in the deck, poker chip trays with hidden cameras, special contact lenses and glasses that could read pre-marked cards, and an X-ray table that could read the cards on the table.
Once the so-called “fish” lost, the Mafia used extortion and violence to make sure they paid off their gambling debts, Nocella said. New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said investigators found that the scheme involved members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese crime families.
According to the indictment, victims have lost at least $7 million to rigged poker games since April 2019, with one victim alone losing $1.8 million.
According to the indictment, Billups, who was known as the “face card” in the scheme, helped organize and play games held in Las Vegas using a rigged machine in April 2019, where he defrauded victims out of at least $50,000.
After another rigged game in October 2020, Billups was paid $50,000 for his participation, the memo said.
“The victims believed they were sitting at a fair table,” Tisch said. “Instead, they were defrauded of millions.”
NBA free agent Malik Beasley, who is under federal investigation for gambling allegations, was not mentioned in the indictment Thursday. His attorney previously told ESPN that Beasley is not a target of the investigation.
The federal investigation is ongoing, Nocella said. ESPN previously reported that some of the same gambling accounts that bet on Porter and Rozier props also bet on college basketball games. Sources told ESPN the FBI is interviewing college athletes and believe indictments are forthcoming.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
