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| Associated Press
Former Pistons star Chauncey Billups charged in federal gambling probe
Former Pistons star Chauncey Billups charged in federal gambling probe
Former Detroit Pistons star point guard Chauncey Billups, who led the team to the 2004 NBA championship, was arrested Thursday along with more than 30 other people in two criminal cases alleging sprawling separate schemes to rake in millions by rigging sports bets and poker games involving Mafia families, federal authorities said.
Billups, now head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games in Las Vegas, Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons that were backed by La Cosa Nostra Crime families. Heat guard Terry Rozier was accused in a second scheme to concoct fraudulent bets by exploiting confidential information about NBA athletes and teams.
The indictments unsealed in New York create a massive cloud for the NBA, which opened its season this week, and show how certain types of wagers are vulnerable to massive fraud in the growing, multibillion-dollar legal sports-betting industry. Joseph Nocella, the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”
“My message to the defendants who’ve been rounded up today is this: Your winning streak has ended,” Nocella said. “Your luck has run out.”
Both men face money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy charges. Also arrested was former NBA assistant coach and player Damon Jones, who is charged with participating in both schemes.
The indictment alleges Billups was a member of a so-called “cheating team” that used cutting-edge wireless technology, including card-shuffling machines that were secretly altered to read upside-down poker cards and predict which player had the best hand, according to the government.
Other technology included hidden cameras and devices that could read cards that were upside down, including card trays, special contact lenses, glasses and an X-ray poker table.
Billups’ attorney, Chris Heywood, issued a statement Thursday evening denying the allegations, calling his client a “man of integrity.” “To believe that Chauncey Billups did what the federal government is accusing him of is to believe that he would risk his Hall-of-Fame legacy, his reputation and his freedom. He would not jeopardize those things for anything, let alone a card game,” Heywood said.
Billups and Jones also participated in rigged poker games as so-called “face cards” who were used to lure victims who would lose as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars during games, prosecutors said. Face cards received a cut of money won during the games, according to the government.
Billups is accused of participating in rigged poker games in Las Vegas in April 2019, during which victims were cheated out of at least $50,000 after co-conspirators used a rigged card-shuffling machine, prosecutors alleged. At the time, Billups was a studio analyst on the television show “NBA Countdown.”
The poker scheme cheated at least $7 million out of unsuspecting gamblers who were lured into rigged games with the chance to compete against former professional basketball players like Billups and Jones.
Once the targeted victims — known as “fish” — lost, the mafia used extortion and violence to make sure they paid their gambling debts, Nocella said.
The rigged poker scheme often made use of preexisting illegal poker games run by New York crime families that required them to share a portion of their proceeds with the Gambino, Genovese and Bonnano families, according to court papers. Members of those families, in turn, also helped commit violent acts, including assault, extortion and robbery, to ensure repayment of debts and the continued success of the operation, officials said in court documents.
Prosecutors, in their detention memo, asked a judge to detain Mafia members implicated in the case, as well as the ringleaders of the poker scheme.
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters. “We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation.”
The alleged fraud, however, paled in comparison to the riches the athletes earned on the court. Billups, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year, had about $106 million in career earnings over his 17-year career. Rozier made about $160 million in his stops in Boston, Miami and Charlotte.
Billups, 49, and Rozier, 31, have been placed on leave from their teams, according to the NBA. The league said it is cooperating with authorities.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the NBA said in a statement.
Billups made his first federal court appearance in Portland on Thursday afternoon, wearing a brown hooded sweatshirt as he sat next to his attorney before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie Russo.
Lawyers from both sides told the judge they have agreed on Billups’ release from custody pending trial on certain conditions.
Under the release conditions, Billups must secure “a substantial bond” with the court in the Eastern District of New York, where the case was filed; abide by certain travel restrictions; and surrender his passport, among others. He is also prohibited from gambling-related activity. The dollar amount of the bond was not discussed during the court hearing.
In the sports betting scheme, players sometimes altered their performance or took themselves out of games early, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. In one instance, Rozier, while playing for the Hornets, told others he was planning to leave the game early with a “supposed injury,” allowing others to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, Tisch said.
Rozier and other defendants “had access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches” that was likely to affect the outcome of games or players’ performances and provided that information to other co-conspirators in exchange for either a flat fee or a share of betting profits, the indictment says.
The NBA had investigated Rozier previously and is still looking into the actions of former Pistons player Malik Beasley, a source told the AP.
Beasley did not cooperate with this latest federal investigation in cases involving gambling and organized crime and has not been charged amid the ongoing probe, his lawyer said Thursday.
“I want to make this perfectly clear any avoidance Malik Beasley has in connection with today’s developments in the federal gambling arrests has no relationship whatsoever to any alleged or accused cooperation or information provided to the eastern district in New York,” Beasley’s lawyer Steve Haney said in a statement to The News. “Malik has not and will not cooperate with any pending federal investigations.”
Haney told The Detroit News on Aug. 22 that a separate FBI investigation focused on wire fraud, gambling and prop bets no longer involved Beasley.
Beasley, 28, remains a free agent as the NBA season got underway this week. He was with the Pistons last season and was a key player on the team that reached the playoffs for the first time since 2019.
Billups played for the Pistons from 2002-08 during the peak of his NBA career. He was a five-time NBA All-Star and was MVP of the NBA Finals in 2004 when the Pistons defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in five games to win their first title since 1990. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year and is a member of the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.
Billups returned to the Pistons as a free agent in 2013 for his final season. He retired after 17 seasons with career regular-season averages of 15.2 points, 5.4 assists and 2.9 rebounds. The player known as “Mr. Big Shot” also played for Denver, Minnesota, Boston, Toronto, New York and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Billups, whose jersey No. 1 was retired by the Pistons in 2016, was an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2020-21 before getting the head coaching job in Portland.
Billups is in his fifth season as Portland’s coach, compiling a 117-212 record. The Trail Blazers opened the season Wednesday night at home with a 118-114 loss to Minnesota. Billups was with the team during the game.
Rozier was in uniform as the Heat played the Magic on Wednesday in Orlando, Florida, in the season opener for both teams, though he did not play in the game. He was taken into custody in Orlando early Thursday. The team did not immediately comment on the arrest.
Hours after his arrest, Rozier appeared in a federal court in Florida wearing a Charlotte Hornets sweatshirt, handcuffs and shackles. His lawyer, Jim Trusty, said in a statement that his client is “not a gambler” and “looks forward to winning this fight.” Trusty criticized authorities for not allowing his client to surrender on his own and accused officials of wanting “the misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a perp walk.”
Trusty said the FBI had previously said his client was not a target in the probe.
Roughly 20 other defendants appeared in federal court in Brooklyn, where most of them pleaded not guilty. Many of those charged with violent crimes or with lengthy criminal records and ties to organized crime were detained.
The case was brought by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn that previously prosecuted ex-NBA player Jontay Porter. The former Toronto Raptors center pleaded guilty to charges that he withdrew early from games, claiming illness or injury, so that those in the know could win big by betting on him to underperform expectations.
In one instance, Rozier, while playing for the Charlotte Hornets in 2023, told people he was planning to leave the game early with a supposed injury, allowing gamblers to place wagers, earning them tens of thousands of dollars, authorities say. That game against the New Orleans Pelicans raised eyebrows at the time. Rozier played the first 9 minutes and 36 seconds of the game before leaving, citing a foot issue. He did not play again that season.
Posts still online from March 23, 2023, show that some bettors were furious with sportsbooks that evening when it became evident that Rozier was not going to return to the game after the first quarter, with many turning to social media to say that something “shady” had happened regarding the prop bets involving his stats for that night.
A prop is a type of wager that allows gamblers to bet on whether a player will exceed a certain statistical number, such as whether the player will finish over or under a certain total of points, rebounds, assists and more.
The indictments contain the descriptions of several unnamed NBA players whose injury status and availability for certain games were the source of betting activity. Those players are not accused of any wrongdoing, and there is no indication that they would have even known what was being said about their status for those games.
Those players include LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Damian Lillard. Their identities are clear based on a review of corresponding injury reports surrounding games mentioned in the indictment. The indictments show that certain defendants shared information about the availability of those players in a game on March 24, 2023, involving the Trail Blazers, and two games in 2023 and 2024 involving the Los Angeles Lakers.
Federal authorities said Thursday that these latest investigations don’t involve sports betting in college athletics. The NCAA last month announced a wide-ranging probe into gambling activity at six schools, including Eastern Michigan, involving at least 13 basketball players.
Detroit News Staff Writer Robert Snell contributed.
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