The FBI and federal prosecutors have arrested and charged a man with allegedly placing bets and coordinating his betting with, based on the description in charging documents, former NBA player Jontay Porter.
Porter was kicked out of the league earlier this year for betting on games, passing information to gamblers, and claiming illness to influence a wager, according to NBA league records and a copy of the criminal complaint, filed Tuesday by prosecutors in Brooklyn.
The FBI said Long Phi Pham, aka “Bruce,” 38, of Brooklyn, was arrested at JFK airport Monday after he allegedly booked a one-way ticket to Australia after federal investigators tried to interview him.
On Tuesday, Pham was in federal court where he was ordered detained. He faces charges of wire fraud. Three other people allegedly involved in the scheme remain at large, according to federal prosecutors.
The criminal complaint against Pham does not identify the NBA player by name, but the charging documents say that the player played only 4 minutes on January 22, with three rebounds and one assist — statistics that match Porter’s stats for the day. It also states the player said he had reaggravated an eye injury, something Porter also had claimed.
A description of an NBA player banned and why they were banned by the NBA also appears in the complaint and it matches Porter.
Porter has not been charged in this complaint.
Representatives for Porter did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear whether Pham had retained an attorney. No contact information for him could be found.
The charging documents say that the player whose description matches Porter “had amassed significant gambling debts” to Pham and others. The document says that one of the people still at large encouraged that player to clear the debts by “withdrawing from certain games prematurely to ensure that under prop bets on [Porter’s] performance were successful."
Porter allegedly did exactly that.
“Video footage of the January 26 Game neither shows any contact with Player 1’s eyes, nor any apparent reaggravation of the eye injury,” prosecutors say, and he “did not subsequently complain to team officials about the purported eye injury after the January 26 Game and played in his team’s next game two days later."
Pham and the other defendants then allegedly placed bets on the game, netting them profits of over $100,000.
The scheme allegedly played out again in March when Pham and the others met at an unnamed casino in Atlantic City to place bets on the player whose description matches Porter. The player told them over the Telegram digital messaging service that he would remove himself from the game on March 20 early, saying he was ill, the documents say.
Surveillance photos in the complaint allegedly show the defendants at the casino. The documents say that the player would receive a percentage of the profits for participating in the scheme.
When Pham was arrested at JFK, the FBI says, he had “approximately $12,000 in cash; two cashier’s checks totaling $80,000; a series of betting slips; and three cellular phones.”
If convicted, the maximum sentence for Pham is 20 years in jail.
