NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors unsealed two indictments Thursday outlining an illegal betting scheme that has rocked the NBA and named current and former players, including the Miami Heat’s Terry Rozier; former Clippers player and current Portland head coach Chauncey Billups; and retired NBA player and friend of LeBron James, Damon Jones.
Prosecutors are accusing Rozier and Jones of using private insider NBA information such as when when players would sit out to help others profit in leveraged bets online.
In a separate indictment from the East District of New York, Billups, who played with the Clippers for two seasons and later was a member of Clippers coach Ty Lue’s staff before earning the Trail Blazers head coaching job, is charged with rigging underground poker games that three of New York’s Mafia families backed, authorities said.
Rozier and Billups have been put on immediate leave by the NBA, the league announced Thursday.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” a league statement said.
At a news conference flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel, U.S. Atty. Joseph Nocella Jr. said Rozier and Jones are among six defendants allegedly involved in one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States. The scheme involved exploiting information about the National Basketball Assn., athletes and teams and covered games with the Toronto Raptors, Lakers, Charlotte Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers.
While each indictment unsealed Thursday is a separate case, they have overlapping defendants including Jones, who played 11 seasons in the league, Novella said. Federal prosecutors allege that between December 2022 and March 2024, the defendants, including Jones, used inside information to defraud bettors, including which players would be sitting out games and when players would “pull themselves out of games early for purported injuries or illnesses.”
Jones played more than 200 games with James over three seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2005 to 2008 and served as an assistant coach during the Lakers’ star second spell in Cleveland. In one of the indictments, prosecutors allege Jones was an unofficial coach with the Lakers from 2022-2023 when he used inside information for sports betting related to the Lakers and specifically “Player 3” a prominent NBA player.
While the indictment does not name the player — the date reference in 2023 when the player sat out matches that of James, when he sat out against the Milwaukee Bucks due to ankle soreness. According to the indictment, Jones, a friend of James, profited from the non-public information.
“Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out!” Jones texted an unnamed co-conspirator, according to the indictment. “(Player 3) is out tonight.”
On Thursday, the Lakers declined to comment on the investigation. A person close to LeBron James told The Times that the Lakers star didn’t know Jones was selling injury information to gamblers placing bets.
Not all of Jones’ information paid off, however, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors say before a game on Jan. 15, 2024, he informed co-conspirators that another top Lakers player known as “Player 4” who was listed as probable and was hurt “would possibly play a limited number of minutes.”
Marves Fairley, a charged co-conspirator, waged $100,000 against the Lakers for the game. The player, however, played and the Lakers won. Fairley made Jones give back $2,500 he got for the information, according to the indictment. While the player was not identified, then-Lakers star Anthony Davis was listed as probable for the game.
The indictment also accuses Rozier, who is referred to as “Scary Terry” and “Chum” in court documents, and several other conspirators of knowing James would leave a March 2023 game early.
On March 24, 2023, an unnamed co-conspirator told Eric Earnest “the Portland Trailblazers were going to be ‘tanking’ so they could get a better NBA draft pick and a player only identified as Player 1 would not play,” according to the indictment. Prosecutors say information about that player’s absence was was shared with other co-conspirators, who had other parties then place $32,000 in bets.
The players made prop bets — a type of wager that allows gamblers to bet on whether a player will exceed a certain statistical number, such as whether the player will finish over or under a certain total of points, rebounds, assists and more, prosecutors allege.
According to the indictment, when Rozier was playing for Hornets, he told others he was planning to leave the game early with a “supposed injury,” allowing others to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, New York Police Commissioner Jennifer Tisch said.
Rozier and other defendants allegedly provided that information to other co-conspirators in exchange for either a flat fee or a share of betting profits.
Another game involving Rozier that has been in question was played a day earlier, on March 23, 2023, between the Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans. Rozier played the first 9 minutes and 36 seconds of that game — and not only did not return that night, citing a foot issue, but did not play again that season. Charlotte had eight games remaining and was not in playoff contention, so it did not seem particularly unusual that Rozier was shut down for the season’s final games.
In that March 23 game, Rozier finished with five points, four rebounds and two assists in that opening period — a productive quarter but well below his usual total output for a full game.
Posts still online from March 23, 2023, show that some bettors were furious with sportsbooks that evening when it became evident that Rozier was not going to return to the Charlotte-New Orleans game after the first quarter, with many turning to social media to say that something “shady” had gone on regarding the prop bets involving his stats for that night.
But prosecutors say he was not the only one allegedly involved.
The indictment also lists nine unnamed co-conspirators, including former NBA players in Florida and Oregon, a relative or Rozier, and an individual who has been a coach in the league since 2021.
The second indictment involved 31 defendants in “a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games,” Nocella said. “These defendants that include former professional athletes accused of using hi-tech cheating to steal millions of dollars from victims that were secretly fixed.”
Federal prosecutors allege both Jones and Billups worked with members of several mafia crime families to set up rigged poker games in New York, luring wealthy players to the illegal games and taking millions of dollars in proceeds.
The games in the New York area were backed by three of New York’s organized crime families: the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese mafia families, authorities said. According to the complaint, at least a dozen of the 31 defendants were associates or members of those three families.
Among those named in the indictment was Joseph Lanni, identified as a captain in the Gambino crime family. Known as “Joe Brooklyn,” Lanni was also named as a defendant in a 2023 racketeering, extortion and witness retaliation indictment, where members and associates of the Gambino family were accused of trying to take control of New York’s carting and demolition industries.
Last week, Lanni pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, according to court records.
Billups and Jones, according to the indictment revealed Thursday, were used to attract wealthy players to the games and referred to as “Face Cards.” But according to the federal indictment, the two were part of cheating teams. In exchange for taking part of the games, the “Face Cards” received part of the winnings.
The teams, according to court filings, used rigged shuffling machines that read deck cards and predicted which player on the table would have the best poker hand and relay that information to someone, referred to as the operator. That person would then relay that information to one member of the cheating team on the table, known as the “Quarterback,” or “Driver,” according to court filings.
In some cases, the cheating teams used poker chips that could secretly read the cards on the table. In other cases, players used glasses that could detect special markings on the cards.
Members of the various crime families provided protection to the games, federal prosecutors allege, and collected debts.
Between April 2019 and October this year, prosecutors allege, members of the cheating teams took more than $7 million in rigged games.
Billups, a 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. He is in his fifth season as Portland’s coach and was courtside during Wednesday night at home with a 118-114 loss to Minnesota.
The FBI has spent extensive time probing illegal gambling with ties to the Los Angeles area. Gilbert Arenas’ arrest for hosting illegal poker games at an Encino home he owned and the conviction of Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara for embezzlement were all unrelated to the investigation that led to arrests on Thursday.
In July, Arenas and five other defendants were federally indicted for allegedly operating an illegal gambling business in which high-stakes poker games were played at an Encino mansion Arenas owned. Arenas, 43, a.k.a. “Agent Zero,” of Woodland Hills, is charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business, one count of operating an illegal gambling business and one count of making false statements to federal investigators.
The FBI also confirmed during Thursday’s news conference that the vast investigation spanning many states did not involve any college athletes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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