The NBA and Charlotte Hornets told federal prosecutors they prefer veteran guard Terry Rozier continue to be prohibited from contacting current and former members of the Hornets while he remains out on bond and awaiting trial on four charges stemming from a federal investigation into alleged NBA gambling and insider information trading.
Last week, a federal judge asked the league to weigh in as she contemplated whether to remove those bond restrictions at the request of Rozier and his lawyer, who claimed that they prevented Rozier from potentially playing in the NBA again. An attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York told Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall in a legal filing Monday that the NBA supported their desire to keep the current terms in place.
Jim Trusty, Rozier’s lawyer, said that would prevent Rozier from resuming his NBA career because he could not take the court against the Hornets while they remained on the no-contact list that federal prosecutors set. That list includes current and former coaches, as well as others. The Miami Heat had also been on that no-contact list but were dropped after they waived him on April 10. The NBA told federal prosecutors that if Rozier were allowed to play in NBA games again, he could “be in a position to interact with potential witnesses in or around the arena, both before and after games,” according to a legal filing by an Eastern District attorney.
Federal prosecutors said that Rozier has already texted one person on the list of people he is not allowed to contact, and they said they have received and are investigating “credible allegations” that “at least one co-defendant, potentially acting on Mr. Rozier’s behalf, has contacted witnesses regarding the case.”
Hall has not said when she would make her ruling.
Trusty said Tuesday in a legal filing that the NBA had asked federal prosecutors to prevent Rozier from contacting anyone in the league as a way to dock his pay and to tarnish his case in front of an arbitrator — who could reinstate the majority of the $26.6 million Rozier was due to receive this season — claiming that “the NBA has ghost-written a parade of horribles for the Government’s letter to suggest that allowing Mr. Rozier to take the court would lead to obstruction of justice.”
“The NBA and the Miami Heat have 26 million reasons to try to use bond conditions as a disqualification for Terry Rozier from playing basketball,” Trusty wrote.
He asked the judge to determine that any no-contact rules Rozier must obey only prevent him from talking his case with those on the list, but not from allowing to play in NBA games.
Trusty also denied that Rozier was unfairly impugned by prosecutors in their letter to Hall. He said that Rozier texted someone on the no-contact list to tell them they had been added and he would try to remove him from the list.
Rozier was arrested in October and charged for his alleged role in a sports gambling scheme that used insider information on NBA games and players to make money. The NBA put him on leave days after his arrest and he did not play this past season.
The 32-year-old Rozier was charged with two counts this past fall, but prosecutors added two new charges last month in a superseding indictment. They alleged that Rozier agreed to take a $100,000 payment to prematurely take himself out of a March 2023 Hornets game so that a group of gamblers could wager on his prop bets. He is now facing charges of sports bribery and honest services fraud. Rozier has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The trial is expected to begin in February 2027. Two men charged alongside him, Marves Fairley and former NBA player Damon Jones, have already pleaded guilty.
Trusty said that the bond conditions have already had consequences for Rozier with the NBA. An arbitrator ruled that Rozier should not be paid the majority of his $26.6 million salary for the 2025-26 season because he could not fulfill his NBA contract as a result of those restrictions. Rozier was in the last year of a four-year, $96.26 million salary when he was indicted.