{"id":269793,"date":"2025-11-07T23:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T23:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/269793\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T23:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T23:07:14","slug":"ex-nba-player-damon-jones-pleads-not-guilty-to-selling-lebron-james-injury-secrets-other-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/269793\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-NBA player Damon Jones pleads not guilty to selling LeBron James injury secrets, other claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NBA player and assistant coach\u00a0Damon Jones<\/a>\u00a0pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges he profited from\u00a0rigged poker games<\/a>\u00a0and provided sports bettors with non-public information about injuries to stars\u00a0LeBron James<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Anthony Davis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jones, a onetime teammate of James, said little during back-to-back arraignments in federal court in Brooklyn, letting his court-appointed lawyer enter not guilty pleas in a pair of cases stemming from last month\u2019s\u00a0federal takedown of sprawling gambling operations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jones, 49, acknowledged he read both indictments and that he understood the charges and his bail conditions, which include his mother and stepfather putting up their Texas home as collateral for a $200,000 bond that will allow him to remain free pending trial.<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019 lawyer, Kenneth Montgomery, told a judge that they \u201cmay be engaging in plea negotiations.\u201d He is due back in court for a preliminary conference with other defendants on Nov. 24.<\/p>\n

Jones was among more than 30 people arrested in the gambling sweep. The others included reputed mobsters and prominent basketball figures, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach and Basketball Hall of Famer\u00a0Chauncey Billups<\/a>\u00a0and Miami Heat guard\u00a0Terry Rozier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sports bettor Marves Fairley also pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges alleging he cashed in on information about injuries to NBA players, including some that prosecutors say Jones provided to him.<\/p>\n

Jones, an NBA journeyman, earned more than $20 million playing for 10 teams in 11 seasons from 1999 to 2009. He and James played together in Cleveland from 2005 to 2008 and he served as an unofficial assistant coach for James\u2019 Los Angeles Lakers during the 2022-2023 season.<\/p>\n

According to prosecutors, Jones sold or attempted to sell non-public information to bettors that James was injured and wouldn\u2019t be playing in a Feb. 9, 2023, game against the Milwaukee Bucks, texting an unnamed co-conspirator: \u201cGet a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out.\u201d<\/p>\n

James wasn\u2019t listed on the Lakers\u2019 injury report at the time of the text message, but the NBA\u2019s all-time scoring leader was later ruled out of the game because of a lower body injury, according to prosecutors, and the Lakers lost the game 115-106.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 15, 2024, prosecutors said, Fairley paid Jones approximately $2,500 for a tip that Davis, the Lakers\u2019 forward and center at the time, would see limited playing time against the Oklahoma City Thunder because of an injury.<\/p>\n

Fairley then placed a $100,000 bet on the Thunder to win, prosecutors said, but the tip was wrong. Davis played his usual minutes, scored 27 points and collected 15 rebounds in a 112-105 Lakers win, prompting Fairley to demand a refund of his $2,500 fee, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

Jones, a native of Galveston, Texas, who played college basketball at the University of Houston, is charged in both cases with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. As part of his bail agreement, his travel is restricted to parts of Texas and New York City. He was allowed to keep his passport to use as identification for flying until he obtains a REAL ID, which his lawyer said should happen soon.<\/p>\n

A hot hand from outside the three-point arc, Jones once proclaimed himself in an interview with insidehoops.com as \u201cthe best shooter in the world.\u201d He played in every regular season game for three consecutive seasons from 2003 to 2006.<\/p>\n

After his playing days, he worked as a \u201cshooting consultant\u201d for the Cavaliers and was an assistant coach when the team, led by James, won the NBA championship in 2016.<\/p>\n

In the poker scheme, according to prosecutors, Jones was among former NBA players used to lure unwitting players into poker games that were rigged using altered shuffling machines, hidden cameras, special sunglasses and even X-ray equipment built into the table.<\/p>\n

According to the indictment, Jones was paid $2,500 for a game in the Hamptons where he was instructed to cheat by paying close attention to others involved in the scheme. His instructor likened those people to James and NBA All-Star Steph Curry, prosecutors said. When in doubt, Jones was told to fold his hand, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

In response, according to prosecutors, Jones texted: \u201cy\u2019all know I know what I\u2019m doing!!\u201d<\/p>\n

The poker scheme often made use of 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 crime families, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NBA player and assistant coach\u00a0Damon Jones\u00a0pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges he profited from\u00a0rigged poker games\u00a0and provided…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-269793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}