Following an extraordinary hearing, Chauncey Billups of the Trail Blazers and 30 co-defendants are not expected to return to court for several months.
As expected, suspended Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges that he financially benefitted from a rigged poker game that involved members of several New York organised crime families and former NBA guard Damon Jones.
Billups, a five-time NBA All-Star, uttered several one-word replies at his New York arraignment in response to a series of questions from US District Judge Ramon Reyes. The 2024 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee is facing felony charges of money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. Each charge carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.
Billups appeared as part of a status conference in US vs Aiello, a sweeping probe into an alleged mob-backed illegal poker network. All 31 defendants in the case were present at Monday’s hearing including Angelo Ruggiero Jr and Thomas Gelardo, two mob figures who have been denied bail. The conference was held in an expansive ceremonial courtroom, usually reserved for immigration naturalisation proceedings.
Billups and attorney Marc Mukasey declined comment as they walked to a van outside a Brooklyn courthouse. Billups retained Mukasey, a former attorney for US President Donald Trump, following his arrest in Oregon last month.
Chris Heywood, an attorney who represented Billups last month in Portland, referred to the former NBA star at guard as a “man of integrity” and denied the allegations against him. Billups also fits the profile of an unindicted co-conspirator described in US vs Earnest, a parallel case being prosecuted out of Brooklyn concerning illegal sports betting.
A complex case
In the poker case, Reyes addressed several procedural matters at the status conference that lasted nearly two hours. Billups and Jones are not the only athletes indicted in the case. An attorney for boxer Curtis Meeks unsuccessfully petitioned the court to modify the bail restrictions for his client. Meeks has pleaded not guilty to charges that he worked with other defendants to provide poker cheating technology for the rigged games.
Reyes declared it a “complex case” of multiple schemes involving the rigged poker games and alleged extortion and robbery. He denied a petition from Assistant US Attorney Michael Gibaldi seeking to break the case into three different groups of 10-11 defendants in order to streamline proceedings.
Gibaldi said at Monday’s hearing that several defendants have begun plea negotiations with the government.
Reyes scheduled the next status conference for 4 March 2026.
Update on Jontay Porter case
Separately, federal prosecutors submitted a pre-sentencing letter against a defendant on Tuesday in an illegal sports betting conspiracy involving former Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter. In July 2024, Porter pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with charges that he manipulated the outcome of a prop bet to defraud a gambling company. Prosecutors charged five other defendants – Timothy McCormack, Mahmud Mollah, Long Phi Pham, Shane Hennen and Ammar Awawdeh – in the brazen scheme.
The government recommended a prison term of 41 months to 51 months for McCormack, whose sentencing is scheduled for January. McCormack and two other defendants conspired to place “under” bets on Porter’s performance in two games during the 2023-24 NBA season, resulting in profits of $33,250 and $36,000 from the wagers.
Joseph Nocella, interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, stated at a press conference last month that Porter may have been a victim of extortion. In a 2024 complaint, prosecutors accused Awawdeh of pressuring an NBA athlete, referred to in court records as “Player 1”, to extinguish his gambling debts. It was suggested the player could reduce the debts by leaving several games prematurely to secure the outcomes on the prop bets.