In an announcement that rocked the NBA, federal authorities on Thursday unveiled indictments and arrests as part of what FBI director Kash Patel called “a wide-sweeping criminal enterprise that envelops both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra.” Among the accused: Basketball Hall of Famer and current Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones.
U.S. Attorneys in the Eastern District of New York and Patel announced the indictments at a news conference in Brooklyn. More than a dozen U.S. government officials huddled around the podium under fluorescent lights with hands clasped, as Patel and others touted their investigations: “Operation Royal Flush,” and “Operation Nothing But Bet.”
There are two separate but related cases.
One case involves performance rigging and sharing of inside information in NBA games. Rozier and Jones were implicated in that case. Billups was not.
According to New York City police commissioner Jessica Tisch, before a March 23, 2023, game between Rozier’s Charlotte Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans, Rozier “allegedly let others close to him know that he planned to leave the game early with a supposed injury. Using that information, members of the group placed more than $200,000 in wagers on his ‘under’ statistics.”
Rozier, who started the game, played only nine minutes, 34 seconds.
The allegation against Rozier is virtually the same as what former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter admitted to doing in court last year. Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud after rigging his own performance to ensure the under on prop bets would win. Porter said during his plea hearing that he did it “in order to get out from under large gambling debts accumulated over time.”
Joseph Nocella Jr., interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said the defendants in that case, which include Jones and Rozier, “also misused information obtained through long-standing friendships that they had with NBA players and coaches.”
The second case involves rigged poker games. According to Patel and the Justice Department, four of the New York mafia’s five families were involved in the scheme: the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese families. They say the perpetrators used poker chip tray analyzers, special contact lenses or eyeglasses, and an X-ray table to dupe players out of hundreds of thousands of dollars—and that Billups and Jones were in on the scheme.
For Billups in particular, this is a stunning turn of events. Besides being a Basketball Hall of Famer and the 2004 NBA Finals MVP, Billups was one of the most popular players of his era among fellow players. When the league created the Twyman–Stokes Teammate of the Year award in 2013, Billups was the inaugural winner. Billups is in his fifth season as coach of the Trail Blazers.
Jones filed for bankruptcy in 2013 and ’15, according to court documents. He last played in the NBA in ’09 and was an assistant coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2016 to ’18.
Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, released this statement after the news conference:
“We have represented Terry Rozier for over a year. A long time ago we reached out to these prosecutors to tell them we should have an open line of communication. They characterized Terry as a subject, not a target, but at 6 a.m. this morning they called to tell me FBI agents were trying to arrest him in a hotel. It is unfortunate that instead of allowing him to self surrender they opted for a photo op. They wanted the misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a perp walk. That tells you a lot about the motivations in this case. They appear to be taking the word of spectacularly in-credible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case. Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight.”
Sports Illustrated did not immediately reach representatives for Billups or Jones.
The NBA said Billups and Rozier were “placed on immediate leave from their teams” and the league is cooperating with authorities.
Authorities said they will also charge, among others, Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley. Hennen was arrested in January and has been negotiating a plea deal. SI reported in February that Fairley’s name has come up repeatedly in the investigation as a possible co-conspirator, but authorities had not publicly named him until Thursday.
Nocella pointed out that the indictments and arrests announced Thursday did not involve college basketball. A separate case, under the jurisdiction of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, has been spearheading the probe on the college level. The NCAA also has been investigating what it terms “integrity cases” in men’s college basketball, where performances were allegedly altered for gambling purposes.
In September, the NCAA announced that it was pursuing infractions cases against 13 players from six schools: Eastern Michigan, Temple, Arizona State, New Orleans, North Carolina A&T and Mississippi Valley State. The NCAA also announced that “additional cases are in various stages of the investigation process.” Athletes who played for the named schools are connected to the gambling ring, multiple sources tell SI. Players from at least another half-dozen schools could be implicated, with more information being uncovered as inquiries continue. The majority of implicated programs are at the mid-major and low-major level of Division I basketball.
Most of the players involved in the college scandal have concluded their eligibility, but others who are still active players are under investigation, sources say. The college basketball season begins Nov. 3.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NBA’s Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier Indicted in Mob-Linked Gambling Investigation.