Celebrity Sightings In Nice - January 29, 2024
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On Thursday, federal prosecutors announced charges against more than 30 people — including several Mafia members and two former pro basketball players — who they say were involved in illegal rigged poker matches that defrauded victims out of millions starting in 2019. According to the indictment, which was filed along with a separate indictment accusing the players of throwing sports betting, this scheme involved rigged card-shuffling machines and specially designed contact lenses or sunglasses that allowed them to read markings on the backs of playing cards. Chauncey Billups, head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Damon Jones, a former Cleveland Cavaliers player, allegedly served as “face cards” in the scheme to attract wealthy people to play in the rigged games in exchange for a share of the proceeds.
Both indictments have really rocked the sports world — some fans unearthed video of a 2023 game that one of the other NBA defendants, Terry Rozier, appears to have thrown, and Stephen A. Smith is now beefing with Kash Patel over the whole affair. In an unexpected twist, though, a surprising tangential character has emerged: Kylie Jenner. Apparently, many of the weekly poker games were held at 80 Washington Place in Greenwich Village, which Jenner and Travis Scott were reportedly using as an East Coast crash pad at the time.
Jenner and Scott were apparently renting the townhouse in 2021 while Jenner was pregnant with her second child, and it appeared in an episode of The Kardashians in 2023. The shady games at 80 Washington are said to have taken place between January 2021 and October 2023 and allegedly involved members of the Gambino and Genovese crime families.
It’s unclear how exactly a series of Mafia-run poker games ended up happening at one of Jenner and Scott’s rentals, but neither of them are named in the indictment, and they’re not accused of having any knowledge of or involvement in the poker scheme. The Cut has reached out to reps for Jenner and Scott for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
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kylie jenner
travis scott
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Was Kylie Jenner’s Home Used for Mafia Poker Games?