The Portland Trailblazers Head Coach, Chauncey Billups, was arrested on Oct. 23 along with former NBA player, Damon Jones. A connection between them and two overlapping investigations led to their arrest and revealed illegal gambling activities that were tied with the Mafia. Billups’ involvement started out when he was roped into the scheme by Robert L. Stroud who acted as an intermediary for an operation run by associates and members of several prominent New York organized crime families. He was recruited with the intention of using his celebrity status as a “face card” to attract wealthy and unsuspecting victims to the high-stakes, rigged poker games in varying private locations. He was accused of allegedly cheating along with other co-conspirators by using sophisticated, high tech equipment, including rigged card-shuffling machines, X-ray tables to read face-down cards and special contact lenses or glasses to read marked cards. Information about the best hands was also relayed to Billups and other co-conspirators at the table to allow them to win a large majority of the hands and defraud participants. He cheated victims out of more than $7 million through these scandalous methods. He was also involved in an illegal sports betting scheme that allegedly relied on insider, non-public NBA information that he willingly released in return for profit. Stroud paid him and other co-conspirators a portion of the criminal proceeds. He received his payments by means of wire transfers following the games and bets.

Billups was charged with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, and was placed on immediate, unpaid leave by the NBA pending the outcome of the legal proceedings. His defense attorney, Marc Mukasey, expects Billups to plead not guilty and issued a statement denying the allegations, highlighting that Billups is a “man of integrity” who wouldn’t risk his legacy and would never cheat or defraud others. He was released on bail on the conditions that he secures a substantial bond, turns over his passport, limits his travel to Oregon and Colorado and is prohibited from any gambling activity. His next court date is set for Nov. 24 in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.