Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested on Thursday for alleged involvement in illegal gambling schemes that rocked the NBA.
Billups, a former Detroit Pistons star and an NBA Hall of Famer, was arrested in connection with rigged illegal poker games tied to mafia crime families, FBI Director Kash Patel said.
Rozier and Damon Jones, a former NBA player and assistant coach, were among six people arrested in a sports betting case, Patel said told a news conference in New York.
Photo: Reuters
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” Patel said. “We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation.”
Billups and Rozier were placed on “immediate leave” following their arrests, the NBA said.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the league said in a statement.
Photo: AP
Billups and Rozier were both indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
Rozier appeared in federal court in Orlando, Florida, where he was ordered to post bond and surrender his passport to be released. He is to appear in court in New York on Dec. 8.
Billups was released on bond after appearing in federal court in Portland, Oregon, and agreed to appear in federal court in New York on Nov. 24.
US Attorney Joseph Nocella said that the 49-year-old Billups was one of more than 30 people indicted for alleged involvement in a “nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games.”
Billups’ celebrity helped lure players to high-stakes games that used “high-tech cheating technology” including shuffling machines that could read cards, hidden cameras and barcoded decks.
Rozier and Jones allegedly “participated in one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States,” Nocella said.
The defendants were involved in illegal betting on the performance of players of the Charlotte Hornets, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Toronto Raptors, Nocella said.
One of seven NBA games cited in the indictment was on March 23, 2023, in which Rozier was playing for the Hornets.
Rozier allegedly let co-conspirators know that he planned to leave the game early with a supposed injury.
Using that information, members of the group placed more than US$200,000 in wagers on his expected performance and after Rozier exited the game after nine minutes, those bets generated “tens of thousands of dollars in profit,” New York police commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Although Billups was not named in the sports betting indictment, the description of one unnamed co-conspirator involved in alleged illegal betting on a Trail Blazers game in 2023 includes a playing and coaching career that matches his.
Tiago Splitter has taken over from Billups as interim coach of the Trail Blazers after Billups was charged.
The Trail Blazers were to host the Golden State Warriors yesterday.
On the courts on Thursday, Stephen Curry scored 42 points, including a game-tying three-pointer late in regulation time, to lead the Warriors to a 137-131 overtime win over the Denver Nuggets in San Francisco.
In Indianapolis, Indiana, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a career-high 55 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder won their second straight double-overtime game to begin the season, beating the Indiana Pacers 141-135 in a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals.
Additional reporting by AP
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