NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Former Louisville basketball star Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups are among 30 people charged Thursday\u00a0in connection with schemes involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Rozier \u2014 who averaged 17 points per game for the 2014-15 Cardinals team that made the Elite Eight \u2014 is accused of concocting fraudulent bets by exploiting confidential information about NBA athletes and teams.\u00a0Billups \u2014 a 2004 NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons and member of the Basketball Hall of Fame \u2014\u00a0was 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both men face money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy charges and were expected to make initial court appearances later Thursday.<\/p>\n
In the first case, six defendants are accused of participating in an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about NBA athletes and teams, said Joseph Nocella, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. He called it \u201cone of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second case involves 31 defendants in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games, Nocella said. The defendants include former professional athletes accused of using technology to steal millions of dollars in underground poker games in the New York area that were backed by Mafia families, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy message to the defendants who\u2019ve been rounded up today is this: Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out,\u201d Nocella said.<\/p>\n
A message seeking comment was left Thursday morning with Billups. A message was also left with Rozier\u2019s lawyer, Jim Trusty. Trusty previously told ESPN that Rozier was told that an initial investigation determined he did nothing wrong after he met with NBA and FBI officials in 2023, the sports network reported.<\/p>\n
Athletes accused of leaving games early<\/p>\n
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 people he was planning to leave the game early with a \u201csupposed injury,\u201d allowing them to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, Tisch said.<\/p>\n
The indictment of Rozier and others says there are nine unnamed co-conspirators, including a Florida resident who was an NBA player, an Oregon resident who was an NBA player from about 1997 to 2014 and an NBA coach since at least 2021, as well as a relative of Rozier.<\/p>\n
Rozier and other defendants \u201chad access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches\u201d that was likely to affect the outcome of games or players\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
\u2018Face cards\u2019 were used to lure in the \u2018fish\u2019, authorities say<\/p>\n
Nocella said the scheme targeted victims known as \u201cfish,\u201d who were lured to participate in the rigged games with the chance to play alongside former athletes who were known as \u201cface cards.\u201d Billups was one of those celebrities, Nocella said.<\/p>\n
The games were rigged through sophisticated cheating technology, such as altered card shuffling machines, hidden cameras in poker chip trays, special sunglasses and even X-ray equipment built into the table to read the cards of unsuspecting players.<\/p>\n
And once the \u201cfish\u201d lost, the mafia used extortion and violence to make sure they paid their gambling debts, Nocella said.<\/p>\n
Losses from the rigged poker games top $7 million \u2014 and counting, commissioner says<\/p>\n
Organizers brought in well-known former and current players and coaches to appear legitimate and used hidden cameras, bar-coded decks and shuffling machines that could read the order of cards, Tisch said.<\/p>\n
\u201cVictims believed that they were sitting at a fair table,\u201d she said. \u201cInstead, they were cheated out of millions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Losses exceed $7 million and continue to grow, with one victim losing $1.8 million, Tisch said. When people refused to pay, the defendants used threats, intimidation, and violence, she said.<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s formidable crime families were involved, police commissioner says<\/p>\n
Investigators found that the scheme involved members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese crime families, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the news conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was also arrested in connection with schemes involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia.<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing four of the five families together in a single indictment is extraordinarily rare,\u201d Tisch said. \u201cIt reflects how deep and how far this investigation reached and the skill and the persistence it took to get here.\u201d<\/p>\n She said they used \u201ctraditional mob enforcement methods, combined with new technology to expand the reach of their operations.\u201d<\/p>\n The NBA had investigated<\/p>\n The NBA, which had investigated Rozier previously, had no immediate comment.<\/p>\n Rozier was in uniform as\u00a0the Heat played the Magic<\/a>\u00a0on Wednesday evening 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 morning. The team did not immediately comment on the arrest.<\/p>\n The case was brought by the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Brooklyn that previously prosecuted ex-NBA player Jontay Porter. The former Toronto Raptors center\u00a0pleaded guilty<\/a>\u00a0to 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.<\/p>\n Billups was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year. The five-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA point guard led the Detroit Pistons to their third league title in 2004 as NBA Finals MVP. Boston drafted the former Colorado star with the No. 3 pick overall in 1997.<\/p>\n The player known as Mr. Big Shot also played for Toronto, Denver, Minnesota, the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Clippers. Billups won the Joe Dumars Trophy, the NBA\u2019s sportsmanship award, in 2009 while playing for his hometown Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n
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