NBA’s Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier arrested in gambling probe

NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors unsealed two indictments Thursday describing an illegal betting scheme that shook the NBA and named current and former players, including Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat; Chauncey Billups, former Clippers player and current Portland head coach; and retired NBA player and friend of LeBron James, Damon Jones.

Prosecutors accuse Rozier and Jones of using private information from NBA insiders, such as when players take time off to help others profit from online leveraged betting.

In a separate indictment from the Eastern 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 getting the Trail Blazers head coaching job, is accused of rigging underground poker games backed by three New York mob families, authorities said.

Rozier and Billups have been placed 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 press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel, US Attorney. Joseph Nocella Jr. said Rozier and Jones were among six defendants allegedly involved in one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting was widely legalized in the United States. The project involved mining information on the National Basketball Assn., athletes and teams and covered games with the Toronto Raptors, Lakers, Charlotte Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers.

Although 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 not participate in games and when players would “withdraw from games early due to alleged 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’s second stint in Cleveland. In one of the indictments, prosecutors allege that Jones was an unofficial coach of the Lakers from 2022 to 2023 when he used inside information for sports betting related to the Lakers and specifically “Player 3,” a prominent NBA player.

Although the indictment does not name the player, the reference date in 2023 that 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, took advantage of this nonpublic information.

“Make a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the news is out!” » Jones texted an unnamed co-conspirator, according to the indictment. “(Player 3) is out tonight.”

The Lakers declined to comment on the investigation on Thursday. A person close to LeBron James told the Times that the Lakers star did not know that Jones was selling injury information to players who were betting.

However, not all of the information Jones provided paid off, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors allege that before a game on Jan. 15, 2024, he informed co-conspirators that another high-profile Lakers player, known as “Player 4,” who was listed as probable and who was injured would “possibly play a limited number of minutes.”

Marves Fairley, an accused co-conspirator, paid $100,000 against the Lakers for the game. The player played, however, and the Lakers won. Fairley forced Jones to return $2,500 he received for that information, according to the indictment. Although 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 that James would leave a March 2023 game early.

On March 24, 2023, an anonymous co-conspirator told Eric Earnest that “the Portland Trailblazers were going to ‘tank’ so they could get a higher pick in the NBA draft and that a player identified only as Player 1 would not play,” according to the indictment. Prosecutors say information about that player’s absence was shared with other co-conspirators, who then directed other parties to bet $32,000.

The players made side bets — a type of bet that allows players to bet on whether a player will exceed a certain statistical number, such as whether he will finish above or below a certain total in points, rebounds, assists, etc., prosecutors allege.

According to the indictment, when Rozier was playing for the Hornets, he told others he planned to leave the game early because of a “suspected injury,” allowing others to place bets that netted thousands of dollars, New York Police Commissioner Jennifer Tisch said.

Rozier and other defendants allegedly provided this information to other co-conspirators in exchange for either a lump sum or a share of the betting profits.

Another game in question involving Rozier was played the day before, 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 didn’t return that night, citing a foot issue, but he didn’t play again that season. Charlotte still had eight games left and was out of playoff contention. So it didn’t seem particularly unusual for Rozier to be shut down for the final games of the season.

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 production for a full game.

Posts still online from March 23, 2023 show that some bettors were furious with the sportsbooks that night when it became clear that Rozier was not going to return to the Charlotte-New Orleans game after the first quarter, with many taking to social media to say something “fishy” had happened regarding prop bets involving his stats for that night.

But prosecutors say he wasn’t the only one involved.

The indictment also lists nine unnamed co-conspirators, including former NBA players in Florida and Oregon, a relative of Rozier and an individual who has been a coach in the league since 2021.

The second indictment implicated 31 defendants in “a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games,” Nocella said. “These defendants include former professional athletes accused of using high-tech cheats to steal millions of dollars from victims who were secretly fixed.”

Federal prosecutors say Jones and Billups worked with members of several mafia families to run rigged poker games in New York, luring wealthy players to illegal games and raking in millions of dollars in profits.

The New York area games were supported by three New York 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 these 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 in which members and associates of the Gambino family were accused of attempting 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 lure wealthy players to the games and are called “Face Cards.” But according to the federal indictment, both men were part of cheating teams. In exchange for their participation in the games, the “Face Cards” received a portion of the winnings.

The teams, according to court filings, used rigged shuffling machines that read the deck’s cards and predicted which player on the table would have the best poker hand and relayed that information to someone, called the operator. That person would then relay that information to a member of the cheating team at the table, known as the “Quarterback” or “Driver,” according to court filings.

In some cases, 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 cards.

Members of the various crime families protected the games, federal prosecutors say, and collected the debts.

Between April 2019 and October of this year, prosecutors say, members of the cheating crews stole more than $7 million from rigged games.

Billups, a five-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA point guard, led the Detroit Pistons to their third championship title in 2004 as NBA Finals MVP. He is in his fifth season as Portland’s coach and was on the court Wednesday night at home during a 118-114 loss to Minnesota.

The FBI has spent a lot of time investigating illegal gambling related to the Los Angeles area. The arrest of Gilbert Arenas 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 unrelated to the investigation that led to Thursday’s arrests.

The FBI also confirmed during a news conference Thursday that the wide-ranging, multistate investigation did not involve any college athletes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.