An attorney for Billups did not respond to an email seeking comment about the latest developments in a case involving a rigged poker game ring. Angelina Katsanis / Getty Images
While Chauncey Billups and 30 others await the latest news about their case when they return to a Brooklyn federal courthouse Wednesday, federal prosecutors told the judge that they could reach plea deals with nearly two dozen of the people charged in October for their alleged roles in a nationwide rigged poker game ring.
Lawyers for the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York told the federal judge overseeing the case Tuesday that they expect to offer official plea deal agreements over the next several days to a dozen people charged in the case. They also told the judge, in the same legal filing, that they have had “productive” talks with lawyers for at least nine more people charged in the same case and are “reasonably optimistic” that they will resolve their cases before a trial. No trial date has been set yet.
It is unclear who those people are. All 31 people charged by federal prosecutors are expected to appear in court Wednesday in front of judge Ramon E. Reyes Jr. for a hearing that will serve as an update on their case, including Billups. An attorney for Billups did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Federal prosecutors charged those people in October for what they said was a sprawling rigged poker game ring that stretched from Las Vegas to New York that was backed by the mafia. Billups and former NBA player Damon Jones were alleged to have acted as lures as part of the scheme; prosecutors said that they were used to bring in potential victims to games and then paid for their work. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Those charges were brought simultaneously alongside an indictment that also charged six men with taking part in a NBA gambling conspiracy that traded on non-public information about the health and availability of NBA players. Jones and two other men were charged in both cases. All have pleaded not guilty.
They returned to court Tuesday for a hearing in front of the federal judge overseeing the case. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who was charged in the October indictment, appeared as well. He is alleged to have told a friend that he would come out of a March 2023 game early while he was with the Charlotte Hornets; that friend then allegedly sold that information to sports gamblers who wagered with sportsbooks that he would not reach certain statistical thresholds.
Rozier and the five other men who appeared in Brooklyn Tuesday are set to return again in mid-May as their case creeps towards a trial, though no trial date has been set.
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