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Sources Say, Miami Heat Guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers Head Coach Chauncey Billups Arrested in Federal Gambling Probe; Federal Officials Give Details About Federal Gambling Probe; FBI Chief Patel Says, Gambling Probe Involved 11 States, 30 People. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 23, 2025 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, ballroom backlash. The bulldozing of the White House East Wing is more expansive and expensive than originally planned.

Breaking news also, new video just coming into The Situation Room showing the Louvre thieves escaping the museum.

And diplomatic push, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to arrive in Israel and later a new press pool. The Pentagon is replacing its long standing press corps after a massive exodus over restrictive rules. You're going to find out who now has access.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is on assignment today, and you're in The Situation Room.

We begin this hour with breaking news of a massive sports gambling investigation. Miami Heat Guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trailblazers Head Coach Chauncey Billups have been arrested in connection with that probe, also being charged former Cleveland Cavaliers player Damon Jones.

At any moment now, the FBI will be giving a news conference on this investigation and the charges. We will bring that to you live. Stand by for that.

I also want to go live to CNN Correspondent Kara Scannell. Kara, what more are you learning about these allegations?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Wolf. All three of these men have been arrested this morning, according to the FBI. And law enforcement sources tell us that this involves two separate sports betting schemes. In one of the alleged schemes involving Terry Rozier, he allegedly was feel sending information to sports betters about who was going to play in games, who would be out on injury. And according to one law enforcement source, he begged out of a game early, only about nine minutes in faking an injury, and that was to help some of this betting that was taking place. And officials say that he profited himself from that.

Then there is a separate scheme which involves, according to law enforcement sources, poker games that took place in Manhattan, in Las Vegas, in the Hamptons and in Miami. And according to officials, that also involved organized crime, members from three of New York's mafia families, the Gambino family, the Genovese family, and the Bonanno family. And according to law enforcement officials, that is the scheme that involved Chauncey Billups. He was apparently at these card games. He was there almost as like a decoy and was paid to attend in order to distract people.

And officials say that this was a very high, sophisticated technology scheme that they were running. Of course, we will learn more details about all of these allegations. When this press conference begins in a few minutes.

I did hear from a lawyer for Terry Rozier. He says that they had been in touch with law enforcement, that they were told he was a subject of the investigation, not a target, and that he was arrested this morning, not given the opportunity to surrender. And his lawyer, Jim Trusty, said in a statement that the law enforcement wanted the misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a perp walk. That tells you a lot about the motivations in this case. They appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case. Terry is not a gambler, but he's not afraid of a fight and he looks forward to winning this fight.

Much more details to come when these indictments are unsealed this morning. We are also expecting to hear from FBI Director Kash Patel, who will be at this press conference along with the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, when they announce these charges. Wolf, you know, this office has been investigating a lot of sports betting rings and investigations. This one clearly appears to be very widespread.

In addition to the NBA player and coach and the former player, we also understand according to sources, that there will be at least two dozen people who are also arrested as part of the betting operation, the money laundering operation linked to organized crime. More details, of course, to come when these documents are unsealed. Wolf?

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BLITZER: Yes. We're standing by for this news conference. We'll have live coverage of that as well.

I want to bring in our Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig right now. Elie you've prosecuted sports gambling rings. Take us inside what is likely happening in this specific investigation.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Wolf, I'm going to be watching for a couple things when the FBI officials take the podium in a few minutes. First of all, how broad is this investigation? How broad are these indictments? Now, Kara just answered a big part of that when she said that the expectation is that there will be a dozen or two people involved here.

Now, we know there's this current NBA coach, Chauncey Billups, a current NBA player, Terry Rozier, a former NBA player, Damon Jones. That in itself is a big deal. But who else? Who are these two dozen or so other people? Are they, in fact, members of the mafia? I prosecuted cases like this. Are they associates of the mafia? Is there anyone associated with the gambling enterprises themselves? Is there anyone associated with the league? We'll have to wait and see.

The other big thing, Wolf, that I'm looking for is what specific charges will Justice Department prosecutors bring in this case? Because there is a federal crime for running an illegal gambling operation, but that in itself is fairly small stakes, no pun intended. The penalties there tend to be fairly minor. But when you get into the bigger charges here, you look out for charges like wire fraud, for charges like money laundering and for conspiracy charges. If you start to see that type of charge, then we're looking at much more serious potential penalties here.

BLITZER: Very interesting. I want to bring in CNN Sports Anchor Coy Wire right now. Coy, this investigation includes a current head coach and a former NBA final MVP, most valuable player, and other pretty well-known people.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes. Just to give you some background on who these players and former players are. Chauncey Billups has been coaching Portland since 2021 following a legendary playing career. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last year as a player. He famously led the Detroit Pistons to the 2004 title over Kobe, Shaq and the Lakers. He was named finals MVP. The team retired his jersey.

After six years in Detroit, Billups went to the Nuggets where he made a formidable duo with Carmelo Anthony and all. Billups was a five-time All Star. After retiring just over a decade ago, he took up coaching in 2020, first as an assistant with the Clippers before taking the head job with the Blazers.

As for 31-year-old Rozier, he was drafted in 2015 by the Celtics, the 16th overall pick in the first round out of the University of Louisville. He was a role player in four seasons with Boston before being traded to Charlotte, where he averaged more than 20 points per game three times.

Rozier has been with Miami since January of last year, he was in uniform as the heat played the Magic in Orlando last night, though he did not get on the court due to a coach's decision. According to the A.P., he was taken into custody in Orlando early this morning.

The other former NBA player being charged, Damon Jones, left the league in 2009 after 11 seasons in the league. He was on LeBron's Cavaliers team that reached the finals in 2007. He was also an assistant coach on the 2016 LeBron led Cavaliers who won the title. Wolf?

BLITZER: Yes. As a longtime NBA fan, I've watched all of these guys and it's pretty heartbreaking to just hear all this news that's going on right now.

Coy, stand by for a moment.

Elie, I want to get back to you for some more legal analysis. What else do you expect to be looking for? What do you expect to hear from the investigators during this upcoming news conference, which is about to begin?

HONIG: Well, Wolf, typically what FBI officials here would do would be to lay out the charges and to give us some sense of the specifics of their evidence. So, we may get a sense from that of how strong the case is.

Another thing that I think is important to keep in mind, and according to Kara's reporting and other reporting that's out there, is there are two separate and apparently unrelated schemes here. First, there's the poker game network, and that apparently is what Chauncey Billups, the coach of the Trailblazers was involved in, a multi-city network of apparently high-stakes poker games.

Separately from that, it appears from the reporting, there's these charges involving Terry Rozier, the individual player. And the NBA, Wolf, it's important to keep in mind, has had a bit of a recurring problem with this. There was a player last year who as indicted named Jontay Porter, because he was doing apparently the same thing that the allegations are against Terry Rozier.

There's a way you can bet a game, what's called over unders or prop bets. So, there might be a bet available. Do you think this specific player will have over or under 12 points or three rebounds? It depends on the player. And what the prior player was doing was basically faking injuries or begging out of games early so that the under could be the winning bet. And if you tell people that in advance, they're going to know that, they're going to be able to manipulate the system and make a lot of money.

Now, according to the reporting, it sounds like Terry Rozier is accused of doing just that at least once. And so that seems to be a little bit of a recurring issue for the NBA.

BLITZER: All right. Elie Honig, thanks very much, Kara Scannell and Coy Wire, thanks to you as well.

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Just into CNN right now, new video appears to show two of the Louvre thieves mid-getaway after their truly stunning daytime heist. We're live in Paris with all the latest developments.

And later, a closer look at the media outlets replacing the longstanding traditional press pool over at the Pentagon, what it means.

Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: All right. This news conference is beginning right now. The assistant -- the U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of New York is now speaking, introducing everyone who's going to be making some statements. Let's listen in.

JOSEPH NOCELLA JR., U.S. ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: -- New York special agent in charge of Homeland Security, Ricky Patel, Newark, special agent in charge of Homeland Security, Michael McCarty, police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, chief of detectives Joseph Kenny and the executive director of the Waterfront Commission, Phoebe Sorial.

I'm now going to turn the podium over to FBI Director Kash Patel.

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Good morning. Today, we are here in New York to announce a historic arrest across a wide sweeping criminal enterprise that envelops both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra. The men and women up here standing with me represent a small portion of the leadership team that brought profound justice in an era that needed it more than any.

I'll just highlight some of the, some of the details in the case in the FBI work and then you'll hear from the others. But as you now know, individuals, such as Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones and Terry Rozier were taken into custody today, former, current NBA players and coaches. What you don't know is that this is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years.

The FBI led a coordinated take down across 11 states to arrest over 30 individuals today responsible for this case, which is very much ongoing. Not only did we crack into the fraud that these perpetrators committed on the grand stage of the NBA but we also entered and executed a system of justice against La Cosa Nostra, to include the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families, and you'll hear more about those details today.

The charges and the arrest that were taken down across this country range from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery, illegal gambling. This FBI will leave no room for any perpetrator of crime across this country.

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You hear a lot about our work of defending the homeland and crushing violent crime. Well, this work is also representative of a colossal portion of the FBI's mandate to keep America safe and to keep our entertainment industry fair and secure. The men and women that are standing up here today worked tireless hours, days, months, and years.

And the fraud is mind-boggling. It's not hundreds of dollars. It's not thousands of dollars. It's not tens of thousands of dollars. It's not even millions of dollars. We're talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation. And we could not have done it without our interagency partners that are before us today. The NYPD, HSI and teams of law enforcement officials from around the country made this day possible. It takes a team to bring this kind of justice, sweeping justice, into the halls of the United States courtrooms, where our brave United States attorney has led this prosecution. It takes courageous prosecutors to stand before you and say, we will not allow this kind of illicit activity to happen, not only at the national sporting level but also where it hides, in La Cosa Nostra.

And when these two collided together, they perpetrated a fraud that is historic in terms of not just money but the scheme and the deceit that they utilize to steal and swindle people from money, to include crypto fraud. This is an operation that showcases to you that under President Trump's administration, there is no room for any type of criminal behavior, be it on the world's largest stage, or in the back rooms of tiny parlors where guard games are being plugged. We are proud to stand here today with the men and women of the FBI and this legal team.

And to the United States attorney, I just want to thank you personally for taking the time to display the work that the media's about to hear about today in detail. As I said, it does take courageous prosecutors, but it takes a courageous United States attorney to bring this case because we are going to take heat for it. But we don't shy away in this administration. We don't say no. What we do is we bring the results across the finish line. We bring them to the public, we bring you accountability, and, yes, they will have their day in court and you will hear the evidence through the court system exclusively. We will not deny anyone of due process. And that's the brilliance of this system. That's the brilliance of this administration. Everyone will be held to account.

So, with that, I turned it over to United States Attorney Nocella. Thank you.

NOCELLA: Thank you, Director Patel.

To be clear, we're announcing today indictments in two major cases, both involving fraud, one involves sports betting, and the other involves illegal gambling, very specifically rigged poker games.

The first indictment involves six defendants who are alleged to have participated in one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States. This scheme is an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about National Basketball Association athletes and teams.

The second indictment involves 31 defendants alleged to have participated in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games. These defendants, which include former professional athletes, use high tech cheating technology to steal millions of dollars from victims in underground poker games that were secretly fixed. The games in the New York area were backed by the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families of La Cosa Nostra. While the cases are separate, there are three overlapping defendants charged in both cases, Damon Jones, Eric Earnest, and Shane Hennen. The indictments in these cases contain only allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent until they are proven guilty in a court of law. But my message to the defendants who've been rounded up today is this. Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out. Violating the law is a losing proposition, and you can bet on that.

First, I would like to talk about United States versus Earnest, the NBA basketball gambling case. The defendants in this case are Eric Earnest, Marves Fairley, Shane Hennen, De'Niro Laster, Damon Jones, a former NBA player and coach, and Terry Rozier, a current NBA player.

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Other co-conspirators were previously charged for their roles in the scheme, including former NBA Player Jontay Porter. Between December 2022 and March 2024, these defendants perpetrated a scheme to defraud by betting on inside non-public information about NBA athletes and teams.

The non-public information included when specific players would be sitting out future games or when they would pull themselves out early for purported injuries or illnesses. They relied on corrupt individuals, including Jones and Rozier. They also misused information to obtained through longstanding friendships that they had with NBA players and coaches. And in at least one instance, they got their information by threatening a current player, Porter, because of his preexisting gambling bets.

Defendants used this non-public information to place hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent bets, mostly in the form of prop bets on individual player performance. The bets were placed through online sports books and also in-person at casinos. The defendants relied on a network of straw betters to place the maximum amount of bets to increase their potential profits.

Most of these bets succeeded, and the intended losses were in the millions of dollars. The defendants then laundered their illegal winnings in various ways, peer-to-peer platforms, bank wires, and simple cash exchanges.

The indictment details specific examples where the defendants profited from illegal gambling and illegal betting on various NBA games about the performance of players on, among other things, the Charlotte Hornets, the Portland Trailblazers, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Toronto Rangers. Each defendant in the NBA basketball gambling case has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Now, I would like to turn to the other case, United States versus Aiello (ph), the rigged poker game case beginning as early as 2019. The defendants in this case orchestrated a scheme to use wireless cheating technology to run rigged poker games across the United States, including in the Hamptons, Las Vegas, Miami, and Manhattan.

The scheme targeted victims known as, quote, fish, who were often lured to participate in these rigged games by the chance to play alongside former professional athletes who were known as, quote, face cards. The so-called face cards included the defendant, Chauncey Billups, who at the time of the scheme was a former NBA player and is currently the head coach of the Portland Trailblazers, and also Damon Jones, a former NBA player and coach.

What the victims, the fish, didn't know is that everybody else at the poker game, from the dealer to the players, including the face cards, were in on the scam. Once the game was underway, the defendants fleeced the victims out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game.

The defendants used a variety of very sophisticated cheating technologies, some of which were provided by other defendants in exchange for a share of the profits from the scheme. For example, they used off-the-shelf shuffling machines that had been secretly altered in order to read the cards in the deck, predict which player at the table had the best poker hand and relay that information to an offsite operator.

The offsite operator sent the information via cell phone back to a co- conspirator at the table, and that person at the table was known as the quarterback. The quarterback then signaled secretly the information he had received from others at -- to others at the table. And together, they used that information in order to win their games and to cheat the victims.

Defendants used other cheating technologies such as poker chip tray analyzers, which is a poker chip tray that secretly reads cards using a hidden camera, special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards and an X-ray table that could read cards face down on the table.

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What you see depicted on a screen right now is an example of the X-ray table that reveals the cards. Although they are face down on the table, they can be read because of the X-ray technology.

The mafia, specifically members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese organized crime families had preexisting control over non-rigged illegal poker games around New York City. As a result, they also became involved in the rigged poker games, helping to organize the games and taking a cut of the proceedings and working to enforce the collection of debts.

The defendants laundered their proceeds, including through cash exchanges, the use of multiple shell companies and through cryptocurrency transfers. As part of the scheme, some of the defendants and their co-conspirators also committed acts of violence, including the gunpoint robbery of a person in order to obtain a rigged shuffling machine and extortions that were perpetrated against victims in order to ensure that they repaid their gambling debts.

Defendants who participated in the rig poker scheme are charged with wire fraud conspiracy. Other defendants have been charged with crimes, including illegal gambling, money laundering, Hobbs Act robbery and extortions. This case demonstrates our office's unrelenting commitment to fighting the scourge of organized crime in whatever form it takes.

I'd like to conclude my remarks by thanking the incredible hard work of our law enforcement partners, including the FBI, Homeland Security, the NYPD and the Waterfront Commission. I also want to thank the dedicated prosecutors who built these two cases and who are standing to my right, Benjamin Weintraub, David Bourbon (ph), Kaitlyn Farrell, Michael Chupaldi (ph), Irisa Chen, and Sean Sherman. They had the assistance of paralegal specialists, Liam McNett, John Schneider, Marlene Bosler.

Also deserving of our thanks because of their outstanding investigative work on the NBA case are FBI Special Agents Russell Lanier, Dominic Mariani, Amy Gioroso, Shane Wilkins and Supervisory Special Agent Luke Hardison.

On the rigged poker game scheme, outstanding work was performed by FBI Special Agents Thomas Cribbet, Jeff Bori Viola, Jonathan Corona, Alexander Silverman, Amy Campanaro, and Supervisory Special Agent Michael Mullahy, as well as NYPD Task Officer James McCullough, and from Homeland Security, Supervisory Special Agent Charles Freud (ph), and from the Waterfront Commission, Detective Paul Shimborske.

Finally, I want to note that the investigations in both cases are ongoing and we encourage anyone with information about either scheme to please contact the FBI.

Now I would like to turn the podium over to Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field office, I should say, the assistant director in charge of the New York Field Office of the FBI, Christopher Raia. Chris?

CHRISTOPHER RAIA, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN CHARGE, FBI NEW YORK: All right. Thank you, Joe. As always, we appreciate the partnership here. We can't do any of this without you and your team, so thank you. Also, I want to publicly thank the director for coming down from D.C. The director's a very busy person. And for him to come down should tell you the importance of this historic case.

I'm Christopher Raia, the assistant director in charge of the FBI New York Field Office. Today, as you've heard, our office conducted a massive nationwide takedown from two indictments of 34 defendants for their alleged involvement in two separate illegal poker and sports betting schemes, where, as you heard, the odds were rigged in their favor.

Among these defendants are 13 members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families, to include capos and soldiers from these families. Additionally, as you heard, current and former NBA coaches and players are also implicated, to include Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones, and Terry Rozier.

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