{"id":319099,"date":"2026-08-12T00:22:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T00:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319099\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T00:22:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T00:22:28","slug":"in-fiery-sports-bribery-hearing-nyc-judge-pulls-bail-of-former-nba-players-pal-over-rat-emoji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319099\/","title":{"rendered":"In fiery sports bribery hearing, NYC judge pulls bail of former NBA player’s pal over rat emoji"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NBA player Terry Rozier\u2019s childhood pal was tossed in jail Tuesday after an explosive federal court hearing in Rozier\u2019s sports bribery case, where a judge blasted his lawyer for \u201cmansplaining\u201d and downplaying the seriousness of a rat emoji sent to a witness.<\/a><\/p>\n

De\u2019Niro Laster, 31, one of the former Miami Heat guard\u2019s co-defendants<\/a>, left Brooklyn Federal Court in custody Tuesday after U.S. District Court Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall<\/a> revoked his bond. Laster has been accused of trying to tamper with witnesses in the sports bribery case, where he and Rozier are accused of rigging NBA games and betting on the favorable outcome they created.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors accused Laster of contacting multiple co-defendants, co-conspirators and tampering with witnesses through proxies and burner phones, and by posting a rat emoji on Instagram.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, got into trouble with the judge almost immediately, when he dismissively referred to the Instagram post as a \u201crat cartoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, come on!\u201d the judge retorted. \u201cYou think this is my first rodeo? \u2026 So don\u2019t call it a rat cartoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Corcoran tried to interrupt DeArcy Hall, she cut him off, telling him, \u201cStop. Stop. Do you not hear \u2018stop\u2019 coming out of my mouth? \u2026 You don\u2019t know me. You\u2019re getting to know me now. When my mouth is speaking, yours will not.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that if he continued to try to talk over her, \u201cthe way in which I tell you to stop will change.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Corcoran, who questioned the credibility of the witnesses Laster\u2019s accused of tampering with and asked for an evidentiary hearing, started to tell the judge that \u201coften in these cases there\u2019s a re-arrest,\u201d the judge stopped him cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re telling me what happens often in these cases? I love being mansplained to!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And when Corcoran continued, \u201cSometimes a rat emoji is just a rat emoji,\u201d the judge fired back, \u201cAm I to put my common sense aside? Am I to just treat this rat emoji as innocuous? \u2026 Is that your argument? Because if it is, it\u2019s a bad one.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to prosecutors,<\/a> Laster reached out to one of the co-defendants in December and said they\u2019d all be well-positioned to fight the charges if they didn\u2019t cooperate with the feds.<\/p>\n

Corcoran tried to argue that the co-defendant his client reached out to wasn\u2019t on the no-contact list provided by the government, but Assistant U.S. Attorney David Berman pointed out that the co-defendant didn\u2019t need to be on the list \u2014 because he was named in the indictment against Laster.<\/p>\n

DeArcy Hall rejected the idea of adding conditions to Laster\u2019s release, telling Corcoran, \u201cI don\u2019t negotiate with defendants. I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet there be no doubt, Mr. Laster was aware at all times that he was not to contact a co-defendant,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Before revoking Laster\u2019s bail, DeArcy Hall said she found other cases where a defendant called a witness a rat \u201cwhere obstruction of justice enhancements were made at sentencing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corcoran, whose attorney fees are being paid for by Rozier, according to court filings, looked stunned as he left the courtroom. He declined comment to reporters.<\/p>\n

\"NEWMiami Heat guard Terry Rozier arrives for an arraignment hearing at U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Dec. 8, 2025 in New York. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Rozier and Laster have been accused of taking part in a conspiracy to rig NBA games, including a Charlotte Hornets game on March 23, 2023, when Rozier let Laster know he\u2019d be leaving the game early because of a purported injury.<\/p>\n

In a filing last week, prosecutors wrote that Laster, Rozier and other childhood pals belonged to a \u201ccrew\u201d called \u2018GMB,\u2019 and that members of the crew, including Laster and Rozier, posed with guns in photos posted on social media. His lawyer, David Markus, said that GMB isn\u2019t a crew at all \u2014 it\u2019s a reference to the former hoops star\u2019s charitable foundation.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Berman pointed out that the government is not alleging Rozier is in a gang \u2014 a point the judge emphasized, addressing the media gathered in the courtroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis court made it expressly clear that there are no allegations that Mr. Rozier is in a gang,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NBA player Terry Rozier\u2019s childhood pal was tossed in jail Tuesday after an explosive federal court hearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,11,10,12,261,265],"class_list":["post-319099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-news","tag-nyc-crime","tag-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}