Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups faces fraud, money laundering charges in court
Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups made his first appearance in federal court Thursday afternoon on a two-count
indictment that charges him with participating in a nationwide scheme to rig poker games.
In a packed U.S. District Courtroom in downtown Portland, Billups, wearing a brown sweatshirt, gray sports pants and sneakers, sat between two defense attorneys with a blue folder of the criminal indictment on the desk in front of him.
Attorney Chris Heywood spoke on his behalf and arranged for Billups’ release.
Billups answered, “Yes,” when U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie A. Russo asked if he understood his right to remain silent.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrows said he supported Billups’ release with certain conditions.
Heywood turned over Billups’ passport to the government. Billups is also required to prepare to secure a substantial bond with the federal court in the Eastern District of New York. His travel is restricted to Oregon and Colorado, and he’s due to appear on Nov. 24 at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y.
He’s also prohibited from any gambling-related activity and any contact with his co-defendants.
“The conditions are standard and common in allegations like this,” Heywood told The Oregonian/OregonLive after the hearing. “Folks shouldn’t draw any conclusions from this.”
Billups stood up and scanned the public gallery of the courtroom before he was led out of the courtroom by deputy U.S. Marshals following the seven-minute hearing.
Billups is one of 31 people arrested across 11 states, accused of participating in a high-tech gambling scheme using wireless technology to cheat on mostly Texas Hold’em games played in Miami, Las Vegas, the Hamptons and New York.
Billups, 49, was arrested about 5 a.m. Thursday at his home in Lake Oswego. FBI agents first took him to their Portland office and then brought him to the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, where he was held until his 1:30 p.m. court appearance.
Billups, who was placed on immediate leave from his Blazers head coaching job, was among the former professional athletes recruited to participate in the games as “face cards” to lure unsuspecting players to get cheated, according to federal prosecutors in New York.
His indictment followed a four-year long FBI investigation dubbed “Operation Royal Flush.”
Prosecutors said members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese organized crime families of La Cosa Nostra are accused of backing games in the New York area and taking cuts of the criminal proceeds from those games.
Organizers used secret hand signals, X-rays, special glasses and rigged card shuffling machines to identify cards even when they were face down, causing some victims to lose tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, prosecutors alleged.
In April 2019, Billups, along with four others, is accused of organizing and participating in poker games in Las Vegas using a rigged shuffling machine provided by co-defendant Robert Stroud and defrauding players of at least $50,000, prosecutors alleged in a detention memo.
Straud is accused of recruiting former professional athletes such as Billups and Damon Jones, a former
Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach and player, to lure wealthy players to the games and then paying them a portion of the proceeds, the memo alleged.
After another card game in late October 2020, bank records showed that Stroud, through his company Lil Robbie Productions, LLC, wired $50,000 to co-defendant Sophia Wei, who in turn wired that amount to Billups, the prosecutors’ memo stated. Wei is a Queens resident nicknamed “Pookie,” according to the memo.
Text messages obtained by federal agents showed Stroud and Wei discussing Billups’ participation during the card games and the need to lose on occasion to avoid any suspicion of cheating, according to the memo.
“The one guy on the end acted like he wanted Chauncey to have his money! He was star struck!” read one text from Stroud, according to the memo.
Wei texted about her concern that bettor Eric Earnest, nicknamed “Spook,” and Billups had won too many improbable hands -- “hit 2 gutshot on the river against the same guy” - which would arouse suspicion, the prosecutors’ memo said.
Wei then suggested the organizers put in another member of the team
- at the table so Billups and Earnest could lose, according to the memo.
A text message from Wei read: “So I was thinking maybe instead of u playing we let one of the middle eastern guys play … and whenever he got the winning hand Chauncey and/spook lose to him and Mitch,” according to the memo.
The shuffling machines were secretly altered to use concealed technology to read the cards in the deck, predict which player at a table had the best poker hand and relay that information to an off-site operator, according to the memo.
That off-site person would then relay the information by cellphone back to someone playing at the table, referred to as the “quarterback,” or “driver” of the conspiracy, prosecutors said.
The quarterback would use prearranged secret signals – such as touching certain chips or other items on a table -- to communicate with accomplice players, and the “cheating team” would use the information to win games, the memo stated.
Other times, the alleged conspirators used a poker chip tray analyzer that secretly read cards using hidden cameras, an X-Ray table that could read cards face down and special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards, prosecutors alleged.
Billups was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player in 2024 following a 17-year career in which he was a five-time All-Star and the 2004 NBA Finals MVP.
The prosecution memo had urged a judge to impose “substantial bail conditions” on Billups and others, noting his “substantial” financial resources as an NBA player from 1997 to 2013, his current multi-year contract as a Blazers coach and his lifetime career earnings of over $100 million. That may occur once he appears in federal court in Brooklyn.
In a second case, a federal indictment alleging illegal sports betting does not directly name Billups but suggests someone who matches his credentials provided insider information that enabled others to bet against the Blazers during a basketball game in 2023.
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Maxine Bernstein
Chauncey Billups, 49, was granted release with travel restrictions.
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