Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was arrested Thursday along with more than 30 other people, including Portland Trail Blazers Head Coach Chauncey Billups, in two criminal cases alleging sprawling schemes to rake in millions by rigging sports bets and poker games involving Mafia families, federal authorities said.
Billups is charged in an indictment alleging a wide-ranging scheme to rig underground poker games that were backed by La Cosa Nostra crime families, federal authorities said. Rozier is accused in a separate case of participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using private insider NBA information.
Both men face money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy charges and were expected to make initial court appearances later Thursday.
In the first case, six defendants are accused of participating in an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about NBA athletes and teams, said Joseph Nocella, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
He called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”
“My message to the defendants who’ve been rounded up today is this: Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out,” Nocella said.
Rozier was among more than 30 people arrested across 11 states in relation to the two separate but related investigations into illegal gambling.
Rozier was taken into custody and charged on Thursday morning in Orlando. The Heat lost to the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night; Rozier did not play due to a coach’s decision. Five others were also charged in connection to the case involving Rozier.
Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, said in a statement that his client is “not a gambler” and “looks forward to winning this fight.” Trusty said the FBI had previously said his client was not a target in the probe.
"We have represented Terry Rozier for over a year," Trusty told Fox News in a statement. "A long time ago we reached out to these prosecutors to tell them we should have an open line of communication."
"They characterized Terry as a subject, not a target, but at 6 a.m. [Thursday] morning they called to tell me FBI agents were trying to arrest him in a hotel," Trusty said.
Miami Heat officials have not issued any public statements about Rozier's arrest.
Federal prosecutors say that before a March 23, 2023, game — while Rozier was with the Charlotte Hornets — sportsbooks in six states flagged suspicious betting patterns on prop bets related to Rozier. That included 30 bets in 46 minutes at a sports book in Biloxi, Miss. All of those bets, totaling more than $13,000 took the under on Rozier’s stats for that night's game against the New Orleans Pelicans. Rozier played just ten minutes before exiting with a foot injury, he finished with 5 points, 4 rebounds, and 2 assists, all below the betting line for his stats.
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In 2023, the NBA conducted an investigation into the incident and concluded that no league rules had been violated. However, the FBI alleges that Rozier told the co-conspirators in the indictment that he would leave the game early. The indictment also alleges that the proceeds from these bets were taken to Rozier's home where the co-conspirators counted the cash.
Last year, as part of the same investigation that now includes Rozier, Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter was banned for life from the NBA after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and admitted to manipulating his performance in games during the 2023-2024 season. The FBI alleges that Porter was intimidated into complying because of his own gambling debts. Porter is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
Damon Jones, a former NBA player and coach who played with Miami during the 2004-2005 season, was named as a co-conspirator in both the sports betting and illegal poker indictments.
The FBI claims that illegal poker games were set up, some held in Miami, where victims were lured in by the opportunity of playing with Billups and Jones. Unbeknownst to the victims, everyone else at the table, including the dealers, were using sophisticated cheating methods to rig the games. This included rigged card shufflers, specialized contact lenses and glasses that could see marked cards and x-ray tables that could determine which cards were face down.
" It's not thousands of dollars. It's not tens of thousands of dollars. It's not even millions of dollars. We're talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation," said FBI Director Kash Patel in a press conference on Thursday.
Billups played for 17 seasons, winning the 2004 NBA Finals with the Detroit Pistons and was named Finals MVP. The five time all-star began his coaching career with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2020, and was named head coach of Trailblazers in 2021. Billups was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame in 2024. He is expected to appear in court later on Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
