NBA Coach Billups Pleads Innocent To Mafia-linked Gambling
Billups, a previous Detroit Pistons star and NBA Hall of Famer, was detained in connection with rigged illegal poker games
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups pleaded innocent Monday to declared involvement in Mafia-linked prohibited betting plans that rocked the NBA, prosecutors said.
Billups, a former Detroit Pistons star and NBA Hall of Famer, was detained in connection with rigged prohibited poker video games connected to Mafia crime households.
He was targeted along with Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier in an FBI-led investigation into the scam that allegedly saw gamers cheated with using sophisticated techniques consisting of an X-ray table and barcoded card decks.
Dozens of other suspects were arrested as part of the FBI probe.
Rozier and Billups were put on indefinite leave by the NBA after being detained in the gaming examination.
Rozier and a previous NBA player and assistant coach, Damon Jones, were among six people jailed in a separate sports betting case.
Billups was prosecuted on charges of conspiracy to dedicate wire scams and cash laundering, to which he pleaded not guilty Monday, the Eastern District of New York prosecutors' office validated to AFP.
Billups was released on bond after at first appearing in federal court in Portland, Oregon, and was represented by attorney Marc at a brief hearing in a Brooklyn court on Monday.
Billups will now sign a $5 million bond in the Eastern District of New York for his pre-trial release, prosecutors included.
Prosecutors say Billups's celeb assisted entice gamers to high-stakes games that utilized "modern unfaithful innovation."
That tech included shuffling devices that could read cards, hidden electronic cameras and barcoded decks.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver stated last month he was "deeply disturbed" by the far-ranging FBI probe into prohibited betting.
"My preliminary reaction was I was deeply disturbed," Silver said in an interview with Amazon Prime.
"There's nothing more important for the league and its fans than the integrity of the competitors."
Silver revealed regret that the allegations had taken attention far from the start of the season.
"I say sorry to our fans that we are all handling, now, this scenario," Silver said.