Prosecutors said Monday that Billups’ co-defendants put on 25 rigged games to scam more than $7 million out of unsuspecting players.
BROOKLYN (CN) — Portland Trail Blazers head coach and NBA Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges that he profited from Mafia-backed rigged poker games involving at least one other former NBA player.
Billups, a former guard who won a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, was arraigned in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy charges. He was released in the afternoon on a $5 million bond, secured by his house in Greenwood Village, Colorado.
“We enter a plea of not guilty,” said Billups’ attorney Marc Mukasey after waiving a public reading of the indictment.
Prosecutors claim Billups, 49, participated in fixed high-stakes card games as a “face card,” which is what co-conspirators supposedly called former professional athletes who used their celebrity statuses to lure unsuspecting players — “fish” — into the games.
According to the indictment, unsealed last month, Billups’ co-defendants used sophisticated technology to cheat victims out of more than $7.1 million over the past six years.
Altered shuffling machines read cards out as they were doled to players, prosecutors claim, informing an off-site operator of who had the best hand at the table. The operator would then text that information to one of the players, dubbed the “quarterback” or the “driver,” who would use signals to instruct co-conspirators how to bet.
Prosecutors say the defendants also used poker chip trays with hidden cameras, special contact lenses that could read premarked cards and even an X-ray table that could read cards face-down on the table.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gibaldi told the court Monday that at least 25 separate rigged poker games took place.
Charged alongside Billups are 30 other defendants, including fellow NBA veteran Damon Jones and members of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families. Jones is also charged in another illegal gambling case accusing him of using insider information to bet on NBA games.
All 30 co-defendants and their counsel flanked Billups from the courtroom gallery on Monday, appearing for a status conference in the case that took place immediately following the arraignment. Gibaldi indicated during the conference that he expects discovery to be “quite voluminous” given the number of defendants.
Additionally, the prosecutor floated splitting the defendants up into three groups to make future court appearances easier to plan. Several defense attorneys, who had to raise their hand from the gallery to address the judge, objected to that plan.
Gerard Marrone, who represents defendant Matthew Daddino, called the idea “fundamentally unfair,” arguing that fragmenting the defense would unfairly favor the prosecution and hinder the defense’s communication. Prosecutors claim Daddino is a member of the Genovese family, accused of profiting from some rigged games.
U.S. District Judge Ramon Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, declined to split the defendants up for the time being and scheduled the next status conference for March 4, 2026. He vowed not to let the sprawling case lead to several years of litigation.
“I want things to start by September of next year,” he told prosecutors Monday. “Do whatever you have to do to get it ready by then.”
Billups did not speak to reporters as he left the Brooklyn courthouse. He was placed on unpaid leave by the Trail Blazers following his arrest on Oct. 23 — the same day federal prosecutors announced the case.
It was also when they announced the NBA insider betting case charging Jones. Active Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is swept up in that indictment, too, accused of prematurely exiting at least one game so that “under” bets on his performance would cash. He has not yet entered a plea in that case.
Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said last month that both investigations are “very much ongoing.”
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