I’m not a gambling man, but I bet the indictments handed up last week against Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and others have will be hard to beat for human drama. It may be time for The Godfather Part IV and Godfather Part V. Either one might rival Part II as a sequel.
I want to focus on Chauncey Billups in these comments as a window onto the cases charged last week. On Wednesday evening I watched the Minnesota Timberwolves come from behind to edge the Trail Blazers in the teams’ season opener. On Thursday morning Billups was arrested amd charged with participation in an illegal poker operation tied to the Mafia. Billups had a bad night followed by a really bad day. I have done my best to get the public facts and allegations straight here, but errors may have crept in.
The poker operation allegedly included X-ray tables to scan playing cards, custom glasses with the ability to read cards, and rigged card-shuffling machines, according to United States Attorney Joseph Nocella. Billups’s role in the operation was to lure victims into participation in rigged gambling. Billups is not charged as a defendant in the case involving gambling on NBA games although he reportedly appears in the indictment as one of the unnamed co-conspirators.
The timeline of Billups’s involvement in the allged poker operation followed his playing days. His involvement also appears to have predated his coaching career. Billups reportedly earned in excess of $100 million during his playing days. He retired in September 2014 after a spectacular 17-year career.
The Mafia poker operation is alleged to have begun as early as 2019 and apparently continued through the present, though Billups’s involvement may have been more limited in time. Billups worked as a television analyst for ESPN and Fox Sports after his retirement from playing and took his first job in coaching as a Lakers assistant in November 2020. The poker operation indictment specifies a rigged game involving Billups in November 2019 — predating his first coaching job — “at which they defrauded Victims of at least $50,000.” No payment to Billups is specified. In a detention memo separate from the indictment Billups was allegedly wired $50,000 for his participation in another rigged game in October 2020.
Overall, “from approximately April 2019 through the present, the Rigged Poker Scheme caused losses to the Victims of at least $7,150,000.” As I say, however, no specific payment to Billups is alleged in the indictment.
James Trusty represents both Billups and Rozier. He is a former Assistant United States Attorney and Department of Chief of the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime & Gang Section. He represented President Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case until he withdrew from the representation in June 2023. You may have seen his legal commentary over the years on Fox News. The linked USA Today story caught my eye with its quotation of Trusty on the Billups charges. This is Trusty’s statement:
Anyone who knows Chauncey Billups knows he is a man of integrity; men of integrity do not cheat and defraud others.
To believe that Chauncey Billups did what the federal government is accusing him of is to believe that he would risk his hall-of-fame legacy, his reputation, and his freedom. He would not jeopardize those things for anything, let alone a card game.
Furthermore, Chauncey Billups has never and would never gamble on basketball games, provide insider information, or sacrifice the trust of his team and the League, as it would tarnish the game he has devoted his entire life to.
Chauncey Billups has never backed down. He does not plan to do so now. He will fight these allegations with the same tenacity that marked his 28-year career. We look forward to our day in court.
Trusty to the contrary notwithstanding, Billups is not charged as a defendant in the indictment implicating compromised NBA games. Trusty’s formulation that Billups would not jeopardize everything that contributes to his stature “for anything, let alone a card game” implies that “a card game” was to be his reward. He is alleged to have participated in the poker operation as a member of a “cheating team” in a rigged poker game. The indictment does not specify the money that Billups was allegedly paid for his participation in the scheme.
It would be more pointed to say that Billups is a wealthy man and wouldn’t help out organized crime for any amount of money, let alone the relative chicken feed implied in the charges against him. Or is there more to it? In any event, the detention memo charges that Billups was wired $50,000. The government has the receipt.
The charges announced last week came in two indictments. The Department of Justice has posted indictment number 1 here. It implicates the Miami Heat’s Terry Rozier and five others for compromising NBA games. The Department of Justice has posted this press release summarizing this indictment. Billups reportedly appears in this indictment, not as a defendant, but rather as Co-Conspirator 8, accused of providing inside information on player health to a bettor before a game. The FBI investigated the case under the name Nothing but Bet.
The Department of Justice has posted indictment number 2 here. It charges Billups and 30 other defendants including “members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese organized crime families” with the illegal poker operation. The Department of Justice has posted this press release summarizing the indictment. The FBI investigated the case as Operation Royal Flush.
In advance of the arraignment of defendants in the poker case, the government also filed a 32-page detention memo and appendix. The memo includes photographs and details beyond what is charged in the indictment. At page 8 of the detention memo the government alleges the wire payment to Billups in the amount of $50,000. The detention memo is posted online here. The government obviously omitted relevant details from the indictment in this case.
