NBA Investigation: Legal Firms Look Into Allegations of Illegal Betting
An independent law firm, hired by the NBA, has requested records from individuals and teams as part of the league’s investigation into allegations of illegal gambling presented in a federal indictment.
This investigation arises from the arrests of Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former player and coach Damon Jones, as confirmed by an NBA spokesperson.
The NBA hired an independent law firm to investigate the allegations in the indictment once it was made public. As is customary in these types of investigations, several individuals and organizations were asked to preserve documents and records. All have fully cooperated.
Several teams have been contacted by the investigators, including the Los Angeles Lakers. Lakers’ training assistant Mike Mancias, and executive administrator Randy Mims, are among the dozen team employees who have been contacted and are cooperating with the investigation.
According to sources, Mancias and Mims voluntarily handed over their cell phones to investigators. Mancias, Mims, and Jones have a long-standing relationship with LeBron James, who is not mentioned in the indictment and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Federal prosecutors charged Jones with selling non-public information about Lakers players’ injuries to bettors during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. In one case, he allegedly obtained the details from a team coach.
In the indictment, prosecutors described Jones as an unofficial assistant coach for the Lakers during the 2022-23 season. In the following season, they allege that Jones claimed to have obtained information from a team coach about the injury of a key Lakers player, who would likely be limited in a game on January 15, 2024 against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
According to the indictment, Jones transmitted the information to co-defendant Eric Earnest, who in turn provided it to co-defendant Marves Fairley, a known gambler. Fairley placed a bet of approximately $100,000 against the Lakers. The Lakers player ultimately played his normal minutes in the game, and Los Angeles won. Fairley, through Earnest, requested Jones to refund the $2,500 he had paid for the information about the injury, according to the indictment.
Jones pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering last week in Brooklyn federal court.
It is alleged that Rozier gave prior notice to his childhood friend, Deniro Laster, that he planned to leave a game on March 23, 2023, between the Charlotte Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans in the first quarter. Rozier, who at that time played with the Hornets, was not included in the team’s injury report for the game. Prosecutors allege that Laster sold the information to Fairley and another unidentified co-conspirator for approximately $100,000.
According to the accusation, the bettors, armed with the information, placed bets for more than $263,000 on the under on Rozier’s statistics. Rozier left the game, citing a foot injury, after playing just over nine minutes.
Rozier is scheduled to be processed on December 8 in Brooklyn. A lawyer for Rozier has stated that his client is innocent.
Congressional committees in the House and Senate sent letters to the NBA asking about the league’s policies and relationships with gambling houses, after 34 people were arrested, including Rozier, Jones, and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, on October 23, in a pair of charges related to betting.
Billups was charged in an indictment focused on alleged rigged poker games. He was not named in the indictment focused on sports betting.
However, an unidentified co-conspirator with a professional timeline that matches Billups’s, was accused of sharing non-public information with a bettor about the Trail Blazers’ plan not to play a star in a game on March 24, 2023, against the Chicago Bulls.
