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 conning a sports betting company along with three others. The two used inside information from an NBA player to successfully bet on the player’s performance, leading to the player being banned from the league, according to a complaint filed with federal authorities this week.

Long Phi Pham is accused of working with others who placed bets that the player would underperform in a game on Jan. 26 and March 20, according to the document signed by an FBI agent. Pham and the others knew the player was planning to withdraw from those games for alleged health reasons, which allowed those “under” bets to succeed, the criminal complaint says.

The lawsuit refers to the player as “Player 1,” but after reviewing court documents, CNN concluded that the player is former Toronto Raptors star Jontay Porter, who was banned from the NBA for life two months ago.

Proposition bets, also known as prop bets, are wagers on individual statistics. An “under” bet is when someone bets that the statistic in question will be below a value suggested in advance by a sportsbook.

Pham – who was arrested Monday at a New York airport where authorities said he was about to board a flight to Australia – appeared in court Tuesday. He was remanded in custody, prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York said in a news release, noting that three of the accused co-conspirators remain at large. The names of those three people were redacted in the indictment.

CNN has asked Pham’s attorney, Michael Soshnick, for comment.

CNN has also reached out to a representative for Porter for comment.

“Whether on the court or in the casino, every point counts. As alleged, the defendant and his co-conspirators, as well as an NBA player, engaged in a brazen, illegal betting scheme that corrupted two games and numerous bets,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. “This indictment is a warning that cheating and dishonesty will not be tolerated in professional sports and that those who engage in this blatant disregard for the law will be prosecuted.”

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

Shortly before the Jan. 26 game, the player told the defendants in a Telegram group chat that he was withdrawing from the game early because he had sustained an injury, the court document says. He played just over four minutes in that game, the court document says.

“After playing only four minutes … and recording zero points, three rebounds and one assist, Player 1 removed himself from the game after complaining to team officials that there was a re-injury of a previous eye injury,” prosecutors said.

The player sent a similar message to the defendants before the March 20 game, telling them he was pretending to be sick, the indictment says. He played three minutes in that game, according to the documents.

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

The FBI agent believed that “these messages related to Player 1’s concerns that he and some of the co-conspirators were being investigated criminally, including for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and that they would be required to delete all evidence on their personal cell phones,” the agent wrote in the court document.

Porter was suspended by the NBA in mid-April. The league said an investigation found that Porter violated betting rules.

The NBA announced in March that it had launched an investigation into betting irregularities related to Porter after unusual betting patterns emerged in connection with the player.

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

When Porter’s suspension was announced, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Porter was receiving the “harshest punishment.”

“There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, our teams and everyone associated with our sport. That is why Jontay Porter’s blatant violations of our game rules will be met with the most severe punishment,” Silver said in a press release.