Brooklyn man arrested in connection with illegal betting scheme involving former NBA player Jontay Porter, authorities say

CNN
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A Brooklyn man has been charged with conspiring with three others to defraud a sports betting company by using an NBA player's inside information to successfully bet on that player's performance, who was subsequently banned of the league, according to a federal complaint filed this week. .

Long Phi Pham is accused of conspiring with others who bet that the player would underperform in a Jan. 26 game and a March 20 game, the document signed by an FBI agent said. Pham and the others knew that the gambler planned to withdraw from these games for alleged health reasons, thus making the proposed “under” bets successful, the criminal complaint states.

The complaint refers to the player as “Player 1,” but after a review of court documents, CNN determined that it was former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter, who was banned for life from the NBA two months ago.

Proposition bets, also called prop bets, can refer to bets on individual statistics, and betting on the “under” means that someone is betting that the statistic in question would be lower than a number proposed in advance by a sports betting company.

Pham – who was arrested Monday at a New York airport where authorities said he was preparing to board a flight to Australia – appeared in court Tuesday. He was taken into custody pending trial, prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York said in a press release, noting that three co-conspirators charged in the case remain at large. The names of these three people were redacted in the complaint.

CNN has reached out for comment from Pham's attorney, Michael Soshnick.

CNN also sought comment from a representative for Porter.

“Whether on the field or in the casino, every point counts. “As has been alleged, the defendant and his co-conspirators, along with an NBA player, participated in a brazen and illegal betting scheme that had a corrupting influence on two games and numerous bets,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. “These prosecutions serve as a warning that fraud and dishonesty in professional sports will not be tolerated and those who engage in this blatant disregard for the law will be prosecuted. »

The gambler had significant gambling debts, the court document says, citing text messages, cell phone records and wire transfer evidence. To clear these debts, Pham and others encouraged him to withdraw early from certain games so that certain bets on gambling activities, such as the number of points he scored, would be successful.

Shortly before the Jan. 26 match, the player told the defendants via a Telegram group chat that he would pull out of the match early, claiming he was injured, according to the court document. He played a little more than four minutes in that competition, the court document states.

“After playing only four minutes…and recording zero points, three rebounds, and one assist, Player 1 withdrew from the game after complaining to team officials that he had escalated” a previous eye injury, prosecutors said.

The player communicated a similar message to the defendants before the March 20 game, telling them he would pretend to be sick, according to the complaint. Records indicate he played three minutes in that game.

On April 4, in a group chat with the player, Pham and other defendants, the player wrote that the group “might just get hit by Wa Rico” and asked if the group had “deleted” everything” from their personal cell phones. , according to the complaint.

The FBI agent believed that “these messages refer to Player 1's concerns that he and some of the co-conspirators would be under criminal investigation for, among other things, violations of the Influenced Organizations Act by racketeers and bribers,” known as RICO, “and were required to delete any evidence on their personal cell phones,” the agent wrote in the court document.

Porter was banned by the NBA in mid-April, with the league saying an investigation found Porter had violated betting rules.

The NBA announced in March that it had opened an investigation into betting anomalies involving Porter after unusual betting patterns emerged around the player.

Porter “violated league rules by disclosing confidential information to sports bettors, limiting his own participation in one or more games for betting purposes and betting on NBA games,” NBA officials said. NBA.

When Porter's ban was announced, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Porter was receiving the “severest punishment.”

“There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, our teams and everyone associated with our sport, which is why Jontay Porter's blatant violations of our playing rules are met with the most severe punishment,” Silver said. A liberation.