By Jacob Kaye
Federal agents arrested over two dozen people – including four from Queens and an NBA Hall of Famer – who they say were behind a mob-run poker ring that spanned multiple states and tricked a number of players out of millions of dollars.
Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York said on Thursday that they arrested 31 people for running rigged, illegal poker games, which were organized by the members of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese organized crime families, and involved Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Damon Jones, a former NBA player.
Four of the people arrested on Thursday were from Queens, including Seth Trustman, a 41-year-old who ran an underground poker game in Manhattan on behalf of the La Cosa Nostra.
Over a dozen of the people arrested are alleged members of an organized crime family.
The arrests sent a shockwave through New York and the NBA on Thursday when federal prosecutors also unveiled a second batch of related arrests of current NBA players who rigged professional basketball games on behalf of mobsters.
Prosecutors said that current NBA player, Terry Rozier, passed along insider information about players’ health, including his own, in order to rig prop bets.
Taken together, around three dozen people were cuffed for their alleged roles in the separate schemes, which prosecutors said brought in tens of millions of dollars for the New York crime families.
Those behind the rigged poker games used “highly sophisticated” technology to “cheat victims out of millions of dollars,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District Joseph Nocella.
And when debts weren’t paid, some members of the scheme turned to assault, extortion and robbery, according to prosecutors.
The scheme relied on former NBA players and other former professional athletes, including Billups, to act as “face cards” and lure victims into high-stakes poker games.
But the games weren’t exactly fair.
“Using the allure of high-stakes winnings and the promise to play alongside well-known professional athletes, these defendants allegedly defrauded unwitting victims out of tens of millions of dollars and established a financial pipeline to La Cosa Nostra,” FBIAssistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia said in a statement. “This alleged scheme wreaked havoc across the nation, exploiting the notoriety of some and the wallets of others to finance the Italian crime families.”
Prosecutors say that the poker games began in 2019, when the defendants began using wireless cheating technology to rig the games.