Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant Damon Jones are among 34 people charged in connection with schemes involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by Mafia, authorities said on Thursday. FBI Director Kash Patel and other law enforcement officials are releasing more information at a news conference in New York. Patel said multiple charges involve multiple mafia families and organized crime networks, and “mind-boggling” amounts of fraud. Rozier's lawyer, Jim Trusty, accused the FBI of aiming for “misplaced glory” by embarrassing the professional athlete with a perp walk, rather than allowing him to self-surrender.
Authorities say an indicted poker cheating ring involving pro sports figures and the mafia used a series of high-tech tactics in the scam. They included shuffling machines that could determine who held what cards and sent that information someone off-site who shared it with a player known as “the quarterback.” They could signal the other players at the table how to proceed. The organizers lured wealthy victims with the chance to play with pro athletes in posh New York spots. Authorities say other tactics used were an X-ray table that could determine who held what cards, and cameras hidden in the trays that held players' chips.
The head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and a player for the Miami Heat have been arrested along with more than 30 other people in a takedown of two sprawling gambling operations that authorities said leaked inside information about NBA athletes and rigged poker games backed by Mafia families. Portland coach Chauncey Billups was charged Thursday with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games tied to La Cosa Nostra organized crime families that cheated unsuspecting gamblers out of at least $7 million. Heat guard Terry Rozier was accused in a separate scheme of exploiting private information about players to win bets on NBA games.
One of Chicago's most infamous gang leaders is now asking Gov. JB Pritzker for clemency after winning a pardon from President Donald Trump earlier this year. Attorneys for Gangster Disciples co-founder Larry Hoover filed the request Wednesday with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. The board forwards clemency recommendations to the governor. Hoover was sentenced to up to 200 years in Illinois for a 1973 murder and sentenced decades later to life in federal prison for running a criminal enterprise behind bars. Trump commuted Hoover's federal sentence in May. He remains incarcerated on the state sentence. His attorneys wrote in the filing that he's now 74 and has suffered three heart attacks. A message was left with the review board's clemency unit.
DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) — Law enforcement efforts to crack down on human trafficking down are being beefed up in Central Illinois. The Decatur Ci…