Former NBA players Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and Damon Jones among 30-plus charged in twin FBI illegal-gambling cases
More than 30 individuals, including three current or former NBA players and coaches, have been charged in US Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York in two cases alleging one or more forms of illegal gambling activity.
The FBI announced the charges Thursday while releasing press statements on both of the intertwined cases. Prominent current and former NBA-ers Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and Damon Jones were among the 31 defendants named in a sprawling indictment alleging cheating in high-stakes underground poker games that involved cheating “teams,” and the use of rigged shuffling devices, marked cards and decks, hidden cameras and more.
The games were run by a series of organizers who obtained the cheating equipment from suppliers, at least four of whom were also charged, and the various games were run under the control and protection of members and associates of four prominent New York Mafia crime families. Though many of the illicit games ran in the greater New York City metroplex, activity cited within the FBI’s four-years-plus investigation spread to at least 11 US states.
‘Face Cards’ to lure wealthy players to underground games
Billups, head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and an NBA Hall of Famer, and Jones, who had an 11-year NBA playing career and more recently worked as an unpaid coach with the Los Angeles Lakers and Lebron James in the NBA’s 2022-23 season, were allegedly known as “Face Cards” among the poker games’ organizers, were part of the cheating groups and were paid for helping draw wealthy players to the games.
Rozier, currently with the Miami Heat, also had “Face Card” value in drawing unwitting players to the underground games. Billups and Rozier were both released on secured bond following their arrests later Thursday. Both men surrendered their passports and were also suspended immediately by the NBA, pending further developments in the matter.
Not all the Mafia-controlled games the three NBA figures participated in were rigged, as some of these games were run without the cheating equipment in use. This provided a veneer of legitimacy to the games, providing some cover for the games where the wealthy victims were otherwise cheated out of several million dollars. Nonetheless, the crime-family members still received a cut of the proceeds for hosting the games and providing security.
Six charged in insider-info case over illegal NBA wagering
In the second case, the FBI announced charges against six individuals who allegedly committed or participated in illegal sports betting and money-laundering conspiracy. NBA-ers Rozier and Jones were both among the six defendants named in this second, connected case.
Rozier allegedly told another co-defendant, Deniro Laster, he planned to pull himself from a March 2023 game against the Charlotte Hornets, allowing for easy and profitable “under” betting on his personal stat line. Laster, in turn, conveyed that information to co-defendants Marves Fairley and “Sugar” Shane Hennen. Hennen allegedly “marshalled a network of associates” to place $61,200 in wagers on Rozier’s unders for significant wins.
Jones, who in the 2022-23 season worked as a personal coach with his good friend Lebron James, is alleged to have shared non-public info about James and another Lakers player on multiple occasions during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons with co-defendants Lester and Fairley. James is not alleged to have any knowledge about Jones’ misuse of the insider information.
Billups, the third NBA figure named in the parallel poker-cheating case, was not charged in this complaint. Instead, he appears to be included as the eighth of nine uncharged co-conspirators cited in the complaint, being described as “an NBA player from approximately 1997 – 2014, and an NBA coach since at least 2021.” No one else matches that description.
According to the indictment – Read The Full Indictment Here – Co-conspirator 8 (Billups) told one of the co-defendants, Eric Earnest, that the Blazers would be tanking a meaningless late-season game in March 2023 with the Blazers all but eliminated from playoff contention. Earnest shared that non-public info with Fairley, who along with another non-charged co-conspirator made tens of thousands of dollars betting against Portland. Four of Portland’s best players were withheld from the game against the Chicago Bulls, who covered the spread in the game.
Why Billups wasn’t charged in this case but is named in the underground poker cheating action is not clear at first review. Via his attorney, and as reported by ESPN gambling writer David Purdum, Billups issued a vehement denial of the accusations made against him.
The Jontay Porter connection
There is a significant connection between this case and the earlier insider-info case involving former Toronto Raptors guard Jontay Porter, who acknowledged feigning injury on more than one occasion to help pay off an old gambling debt to a group of gamblers alleged to include at least two of the same people charged Thursday,
Hennen, a mysterious figure on the fringes of the poker world, was charged in both the insider sports betting and underground poker-cheating cases, and he’s one of only four people charged on Wednesday in both FBI-led indictments. Another Jontay Porter co-defendant, Ammar Awawdeh, was charged only in the poker-cheating matter.
Hennen was arrested last January after news of the Porter scandal broke, and he was arrested at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid International Airport after having purchased a one-way ticket to Columbia. While others in the Porter case have reached plea deals, Hennen, at last report, has not and remains incarcerated. These latest charges are unlikely to change that status.
Prominent podcaster Jeff Nadu, host of the Sit Down crime history podcast, alleged Thursday Hennen’s involvement for many years as a Government informant.
And more on Hennen, an underworld poker cheating nexus…?
Hennen’s rabbit hole runs deep. In the underground poker-cheating indictment just released by the FBI, Hennen is one of five defendants who supplied the cheating technology used to steal millions from players in the illicit underground games.
That is so interesting because Hennen was also a part of the cheating team accused of ripping off high-stakes private games in greater Los Angeles a few years back, stealing more millions from unsuspecting participants including “West Side” Wesley Fei and “Nik Airball” Arcot.
The cheated players also alleged the use of technical means, including marked decks and rigged shufflers, even though it appears they never had the whole thing worked out. Amid his very public accusations, however, Fei did post a picture showing a partial image of Hennen, who was asserted to be somewhere between an occasional or frequent participant in the games.
Despite the evidence Fei and other players submitted about the probable cheating in the underground LA games, no charges have ever been filed. Fei also asserted mob connections to the games and after the LA cheating was outed, those involved scattered to the winds, with several leaving the US.
It is not likely to happen overnight, but with the New York cases now on record, it will be interesting to see if local or federal authorities show any new interest in the LA cheating scandal.
CODA: The Deckmate 2 again
In his introductory brief on this newly erupting poker scandal, PLU head honcho Dan Ross noted the rigging of shuffling machines in this indictment again appears to involve ShuffleMaster’s Deckmate 2 shuffler, previously shown to be vulnerable to being compromised for illicit cheating purposes.
As detailed by Matt Berkey on the old Only Friends podcast two years back, alleged cheating in a Las Vegas game where Billups served as the “face card,” drawing player interest, may have involved the cheating group now facing charges.
My question, apart from this latest scandal, is why hasn’t ShuffleMaster done something about this. The Deckmate 2’s problems have been known for years, but I’ve never seen the company do something about it. New and refurbished Deckmate 2 shufflers are available everywhere. Surely ShuffleMaster could issue an advisory or release a software patch or at least do something to pretend to show interest, right? When it makes WIRED, it is a problem already.
(Image from Associated Press)
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