A basketball coach in the NBA’s hall of fame and alleged members of the American Mafia are embroiled in what federal prosecutors are calling a years-long scheme to swindle millions of dollars from high rollers who had no chance of winning.
An explosive indictment accuses basketball stars and bookies of conspiring with four of New York’s Five Families to rig illegal, high-stakes poker games across the country with high-tech devices — with threats of violence against the marks in debt to the fraudulent scheme.
The allegations unsealed in Brooklyn federal court Thursday accuse Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player Damon Jones of participating in the alleged scheme alongside 30 other defendants.
Beginning in at least 2019, defendants and their co-conspirators “engaged in a complex fraud scheme to rig, or cheat at, illegal poker games” throughout the United States, where high rollers would be enticed to play alongside big names at the tables before they were bilked out of tens of thousands of dollars each game, according to prosecutors.
The defendants, who allegedly cheated victims out of $7.15 million, have been charged with wire fraud, operating an illegal gambling business, money laundering, extortion and armed robbery.
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” FBI director Kash Patel said during a press conference in Brooklyn announcing the charges Thursday.
“This alleged illegal gambling operation hustled unwitting victims out of tens of millions of dollars, and created a financial pipeline for La Cosa Nostra to help fund and facilitate their organized criminal activity,” added FBI New York Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia.
He said the indictment is just the “tip of the iceberg.”
NBA ‘face cards’ and mob enforcers
Defendants are accused of organizing illegal games and inviting “face cards” — including famous faces Billups and Jones — to attract wealthy players who became their victims, or “fish.”
Ammar Awawdeh, who was criminally charged in a separate gambling scandal last year, along with Zhen Hu, Robert “Black Rob” Stroud and Seth Trustman, organized the illegal games — operating with the “express permission and approval of” members and associates of organized crime families, according to prosecutors.
Tony Goodson, Shane Hennen, Curtis Meeks and Robert Stroud then supplied them with “cheating technology,” the indictment states.
Victims, meanwhile, believed they were playing “straight” illegal poker games on equal footing with the players beside them, prosecutors said.
“In reality, however, the defendants and their co-conspirators, who constituted the remaining participants purportedly playing in the poker games, worked together on cheating teams … that used advanced wireless technologies to read the cards dealt in each poker hand and relay that information to the defendants and coconspirators participating in the illegal poker games,” according to the indictment.
The defendants and their co-conspirators then bet accordingly to ensure that the victims lost, the indictment says.
High-tech cheating gear and millions of dollars at stake
At the games, the plaintiffs used card shuffling machines that were “secretly altered to use concealed technology to read the cards in the deck, predict which player at the table had the best poker hand, and relay that information via interstate wires to an off-site operator,” according to the indictment.
That operator then called the “quarterback” or “driver” at the table, who used “secret signaling” to share that information with other members of the group.
Other means of cheating allegedly included “electronic poker chip trays” that could covertly read cards on the table; decoy cell phones that secretly analyzed cards; and playing cards with individual markers that could only be seen by players wearing special sunglasses or contact lenses.
For a game in Las Vegas in 2019, a victim was defrauded of at least $50,000, according to the indictment.
At a New York game in 2023, one of the several “John Doe” victims in the case was defrauded of roughly $1.8 million, the indictment says.
Two victims at another 2023 game in East Hampton were each defrauded of $46,500 and $105,000, according to prosecutors.
At a Miami game in September 2024, another John Doe lost at least $60,000, prosecutors said.
Money laundering, extortion and armed robbery
Anthony “Doc” Shnayderman is accused of laundering the money the defendants allegedly ripped off victims through shell companies to conceal their scheme.
In exchange for a portion of the winnings, alleged members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families were hired to use “threats and intimidation” to retrieve debts owed from the illegal games.
Ernest Aiello, Thomas “Juice” Gerlardo, and Julius “Jay” Ziliani received proceeds on behalf of the Bonnano crime family, the indictment says. Matthew “The Wrestler” Daddino allegedly received proceeds on behalf of the Lucchese crime family.
John Gallo, Lee Fama, Joseph Lanni and Angelo Ruggiero Jr. received proceeds on behalf of the Gambino crime family, according to prosecutors.
Gallo as well as Louis “Lou Ap” Apicella and Nicholas Minucci, alleged associates of the Gambino family, are also accused of organizing the illegal games.
At least two John Doe victims were allegedly threatened with violence in extortion attempts to collect debts, and in September 2023, several defendants allegedly held up another John Doe victim at gunpoint to steal a rigged shuffling machine.
More indictments rock NBA and sports betting world
A separate indictment unsealed Thursday accuses NBA stars of participating in a sports betting conspiracy, stemming from suspicious betting activity on games.
That case involves six defendants, including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier.
Damon Jones — who played for 10 teams in his decade-plus NBA career, including three seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers — is charged in both cases.
The four sportsbooks allegedly running fraudulent bets are not named in that indictment.
“While regulation cannot eliminate all concerns related to game integrity, it significantly reduces risks by enabling collaboration between operators, leagues, teams, and relevant authorities to identify and hold accountable anyone engaged in illegal behavior,” a spokesperson for online betting platform DraftKings said. “We know our fans value the authenticity of competition, and we take the responsibility of reporting suspicious activity seriously.”
Billups, a former player for the Detroit Pistons who spent 17 years in the NBA, was arrested in Portland, Oregon.
Rozier, a 10-year NBA veteran, was arrested in Florida.
Both men were placed on immediate leave from their teams, according to the NBA.
“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today,” the NBA said in a statement Thursday. “We will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities. We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”
