{"id":700640,"date":"2026-05-29T02:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T02:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/700640\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T02:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T02:50:08","slug":"feds-charge-terry-rozier-with-accepting-a-100k-bribe-to-leave-an-nba-game-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/700640\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds charge Terry Rozier with accepting a $100K bribe to leave an NBA game early"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal prosecutors allege that veteran guard Terry Rozier agreed to accept a payment worth about $100,000 from a sports gambler to take himself out early from an NBA game while he was playing for the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n

The allegations come in an indictment filed Thursday by the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The filing claims that Rozier conspired with a group of gamblers, including Marves Fairley<\/a>, to use nonpublic information to help them win their bets. Prosecutors said that Rozier has been playing despite a lower leg injury but used that as an excuse to exit a game early. Ultimately, the indictment said, he told a friend, Deniro Laster, that he would leave the March 23, 2023, Hornets game against the\u00a0 New Orleans Pelicans in the first quarter. Laster then reportedly shared that information with the gamblers.<\/p>\n

Fairley pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts in the NBA gambling case and said he paid an NBA player to limit his performance. A federal prosecutor them clarified in court that Rozier was that player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agreed to pay a player to change their game performance,\u201d Fairley said.<\/p>\n

Jim Trusty, an attorney for Rozier, denied the claims. Rozier pleaded not guilty to the original charges filed in October.<\/p>\n

Rozier had been traded to the Miami Heat by then, and he was arrested on Oct. 23, the morning after the Heat played their first game of the 2025-26 season. Rozier did not play in that game and would not all season. He was waived in April. Rozier was set to be paid $26.6 million in the last year of a four-year, $96.3 million contract. Rozier was placed on unpaid administrative leave by the NBA days after his arrest. He and the NBA Players Union filed a grievance, and an arbitrator ruled that he should be paid his salary<\/a>. The NBA again tried to diminish his pay this spring and the union again appealed to an arbitrator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rozier asked the federal judge overseeing the case, LaShann DeArcy Hall, to dismiss the charges against him. He is awaiting her ruling after she heard arguments from Trusty and government attorneys late last month. Trusty argued that the judge should throw out the charges against Rozier because the government was using a legal theory to prosecute fraud charges that had been abrogated<\/a> by the United States Supreme Court in its 2023 decision in Ciminelli v. United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some desperate men in this case with terrible criminal records and tons of exposure, and they know what to say to please these prosecutors,\u201d Trusty said Thursday.<\/p>\n

He added later, \u201cThe new indictment confirms that our motion to dismiss was a good one \u2014 it\u2019s just new charges and new theories trotted out in the hope that something sticks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rozier has been charged with two new felony counts after a grand jury approved a superseding indictment in Brooklyn federal court Thursday. He is also now accused of sports bribery and honest services fraud, in addition to the two wire fraud charges he has faced since October. While two sportsbooks were named as victims in the original indictment brought last month, federal prosecutors said that Rozier, Laster and another defendant, Shane Hennen, conspired to defraud the NBA and the Hornets \u201cthrough bribery and kickbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege that Rozier told Laster he would take himself out early from the Hornets\u2019 game intentionally so that Laster and others could bet on it. Laster, the indictment said, then gave this information to Fairley and Hennen, and that they texted to confirm the plan.<\/p>\n

Rozier played just nine minutes and 34 seconds in that game and scored five points. He had been averaging more than 21 points and 35 minutes per game. He left with 2:26 remaining in the first quarter and did not play again.<\/p>\n

Rozier did not reach the points, assists and 3s thresholds set by the sportsbooks, though he surpassed the line the sportsbooks set for his rebounds in that game. Because of that, some of the bets on Rozier lost. After the game, prosecutors said, Rozier and the other men agreed to lower his payment to $70,000.<\/p>\n

Five days later, Fairley came to Philadelphia to collect his portion of the winnings from Hennen. Laster flew to Philadelphia that day, too \u2014 prosecutors said Rozier paid for his flight \u2014 and received \u201ctens of thousands of dollars\u201d in cash from Fairley, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n

Laster was also charged last October. He has pleaded not guilty. He and Hennen were charged Thursday with the new new counts of sports bribery and honest services fraud, just as Rozier was.<\/p>\n

Hennen is also facing charges in two other cases brought by the Department of Justice. He is a defendant in the rigged poker games case brought by the US Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District and the college basketball point shaving case brought by federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania. He has pleaded not guilty in all three cases.<\/p>\n

But the guilty pleas are starting to pile up across the cases. Six men were charged in the NBA gambling case, and Fairley became the second Thursday to plead guilty. He also pleaded guilty to five counts brought in the college basketball cheating case in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Damon Jones, an 11-year NBA veteran, pleaded guilty last month. He admitted to selling nonpublic information to the same group of sports bettors. He also admitted to his role in a rigged poker game ring that led to 31 people being arrested and charged, including former Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups. Billups has pleaded not guilty. Six men charged in the rigged poker game ring alongside Billups have pleaded guilty or told the court that they intend to change their plea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal prosecutors allege that veteran guard Terry Rozier agreed to accept a payment worth about $100,000 from a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-700640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}