New York (AFP) – Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested Thursday for alleged involvement in illegal gambling schemes that rocked the NBA. Billups, a former Detroit Pistons star and an NBA Hall of Famer, was arrested in connection with rigged illegal poker games tied to Mafia crime families, FBI Director Kash Patel said. Rozier and a former NBA player and assistant coach, Damon Jones, were among six people arrested in a sports betting case, Patel said at a press conference in New York.
“The fraud is mind boggling,” Patel said. “We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation.” Billups and Rozier were placed on “immediate leave” following their arrests, the NBA said. “We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the league said in a statement.
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Billups and Rozier were both indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. Rozier appeared in federal court in Orlando, Florida, where he was ordered to post bond and surrender his passport in order to be released. He is to appear in court in New York on December 8. Billups was released on bond after appearing in federal court in Portland, Oregon, and agreed to appear in federal court in New York on November 24.
US Attorney Joseph Nocella said the 49-year-old Billups was one of more than 30 people indicted for alleged involvement in a “nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games.” Billups’s celebrity helped lure players to high-stakes games that used “high-tech cheating technology” including shuffling machines that could read cards, hidden cameras, and barcoded decks. Rozier and Jones allegedly “participated in one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States,” Nocella said.
The defendants were involved in illegal betting on the performance of players on the Charlotte Hornets, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Los Angeles Lakers, and Toronto Raptors, Nocella said. One of seven NBA games cited in the indictment was on March 23, 2023, in which Rozier was playing for the Hornets. Rozier allegedly let co-conspirators know that he planned to leave the game early with a supposed injury. Using that information, members of the group placed more than $200,000 in wagers on his expected performance and after Rozier exited the game after nine minutes, those bets generated “tens of thousands of dollars in profit,” New York police commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Although Billups was not named in the sports betting indictment, the description of one unnamed co-conspirator involved in alleged illegal betting on a Trail Blazers game in 2023 includes a playing and coaching career that matches his.
Rozier, 31, has averaged 13.9 points per game playing for three teams over his 11-year NBA career. He was part of the illegal gambling probe that led to the lifetime ban of former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter last year. The NBA said in January they found no evidence Rozier violated league rules but were cooperating with an ongoing federal investigation. Rozier’s lawyer, James Trusty, said in a statement that prosecutors “appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing.”
“Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case,” Trusty said. “Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight.” The National Basketball Players Association added in a statement: “The integrity of the game is paramount to NBA players, but so is the presumption of innocence and both are hindered when player popularity is misused to gain attention. We will ensure our members are protected and afforded their due process rights through this process.”
Prosecutors said Jones, who played and coached for the Cleveland Cavaliers, was working as an “unofficial assistant coach” for the Lakers in the 2022-23 season when he fed bettors inside information on player injuries and availability that allowed them to beat the odds. League rules prohibit players and other personnel from wagering on NBA games or providing confidential information that could affect performance or results before it is generally made public.
© 2024 AFP
