Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups has been placed on unpaid leave by the NBA after being arrested as part of a federal investigation into an illegal poker operation with ties to the mafia.
According to Sam Amick of The Athletic, Billups has hired renowned defense attorney Marc Mukaskey to represent him.
As Amick writes, Mukasky is a former prosecutor from New York who is well-known for taking on high-profile white-collar cases, including acting as an attorney in recent years for U.S. President Donald Trump. Mukasky is the son of former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Amick adds.
Billups was arraigned last week in federal court on one count of wire-fraud conspiracy and one count of money-laundering conspiracy. His next next court date is November 24 in Brooklyn, New York.
The attorney who represented Billups at last week’s arraignment in Portland said the 49-year-old disputes the charges.
Former NBA big man Tiago Splitter is serving as Portland’s interim head coach while Billups’ legal situation plays out.
Here’s more on Billups:
- While he wasn’t charged or named in the separate but related illegal sports betting case that resulted in the arrest of Terry Rozier, Billups fits the description of Co-Conspirator 8, who allegedly tipped of Eric “Spook” Earnest that the Blazers would go into tank mode ahead of a game on March 24, 2023. Carson Kessler and Nathan Fenno of The Athletic take a look at how Billups may have gotten to know Earnest, who is one of three people indicted in both cases. As the authors note, the 53-year-old Earnest had multiple extended stints in prison after pleading guilty to or being found guilty of various felony charges in unrelated legal cases.
- People around the Blazers and the league have been stunned by Billups’ indictment, writes Ramona Shelburne of ESPN. One such person is Billups’ former head coach with the Pistons, Larry Brown, who has been texting the Hall-of-Fame guard nearly every day over the past week. “He would be one of the last people I would think about involving himself with bad people,” Brown told ESPN. “If you talked to anybody that was involved with Chauncey, that spent time with him and knew his family, knew his kids, I think they’d be saying the same thing.” An unnamed associate whom Shelburne describes as close to Billups said they “didn’t even know” Billups gambled and that they’re concerned for the coach’s well being. “The thing that scares me for Chauncey is that he’s dealing with these mob guys,” the person said. “If this is true, if he set people up. … It could get nasty.”
- Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue refers to Billups as his best friend and the two have known each other since they were teenagers. Lue says he has spoken to Billups since he was indicted, as Shelburne relays. “When you’ve known somebody so long, you can just tell by their voice — if he’s OK,” Lue said. “Like I said, he’s confident in what’s going on. The toughest part just for him, just like his family going through with his daughters. But other than that, he’s really confident about the situation. So just hearing his voice, I can just see that he’s OK. So that was good to hear.”
Good news for Billups is that Trump already working to have indictment of Billups tossed.
Haha what? Their whole indictment is based on Billups saying the Blazers are going into tank mode? What’s next? If you say the sun is going to come up tomorrow, that’s consider insider trading? Gtfo
Trump’s justice department.
Make that make sense
I dislike Trump as much as anyone, but his shadow isn’t hanging over every single person working at these agencies nor is everyone a Trump lackey, especially at the lower levels. Plus, the feds got involved back when Biden was president. They obviously think they have a real case here.
Your reading comprehension isn’t very good, is it?
It’s great. Try again
What Larry Brown said. Scary stuff.
Idk if Terry Rozier is tradeable but if he is then he’d be apart of my Sixers rebuild.
PG for Wiggins and Rozier
Clear him off our books, Wiggins can do a lot of what he does and what he lacks in scoring we make up for with Maxey VJ Grimes and McCain.
Rozier is on an expiring deal so that’s fine.
Heat get back PG who would make their team stacked on paper.
Herro Powell PG Bam Ware, Daivon Jaime and Jovic.
Then after that we would need to try clear Embiid.
Idk how possible that is but maybe the Clippers are desperate enough. They have Harden who loves Embiid. They have an old win now team.
Embiid, Grimes and a first for Zubac, Collins and Bogi.
Clippers remain stacked Harden Kawhi Embiid Beal CP3 Dunn Grimes BLopez and Batum.
As for the Sixers it’s not so much about who but more clearing the unwanted contract.
Maxey VJ Wiggins Collins Zubac, McCain Bogi Oubre Bona etc might not filled with big names but we can play faster and have less injury prone old heads and clear the books much quicker
And Gacy had his whole town fooled. And most child sex abuse victims were abused by someone known to the family. People are famously not good at identifying who the bad guys are. Sometimes there we no signs, often times there were signs that people were oblivious to for various reasons. It’s a little like how the good GMs know what to look for in prospects while the rest are either not good at it or need to depend very heavily on luck.
Frankly, this whole situation puts a bad taste in my mouth. While I get the rush to defend a friend or colleague, to essentially rave about their character in the face of these charges I just think is disrespectful to the victims. Sure, we may not be talking about the most sympathetic victims here, but have some humility and decency to let the process play out instead of very publicly gushing about what a great guy Chauncey is. I’d even go so far to say some of them seem to be convinced of his innocence by default; again, nothing new as far as humans go.