Brooklyn’s Federal Court has charged two more suspects for their alleged involvement in the betting scheme that led to Jontay Porter being permanently suspended from the NBA.
As announced by the league in April, Jontay Porter was banned for several reasons, the first being that he had reportedly wagered against his own team on multiple occasions. According to the accusations, Porter had also been involved in a betting scheme which saw him tip off four individuals that his health would suffer during specific games and that he would exit the matches prematurely, enabling them to place bets with insider information and secure fraudulent profits.
The defendants, Mahmud Mollah and Timothy McCormack, have been accused of being two of the aforementioned co-conspirators. As this week also saw Long Phi Pham, another suspect, being charged, this means that only one individual remains unaccounted for.
The Suspects Wagered Thousands of Dollars
As described in the court papers, Mollah netted over $1 million in winnings by placing multiple “under” prop bets totalling almost $67,000 on a game between the Toronto Raptors and the Sacramento Kings that took place on March 20th. This was achieved by Porter claiming that he felt ill after just several minutes of gameplay. Allegedly, McCormack also took advantage of this by wagering $8,000, which scored him a win of over four times that sum. It is presumed that he, along with Mollah and Pham, placed the bets at a casino in Atlantic City, with a surveillance photo of the three dated March 20th serving as evidence.
The other game that was affected by the betting fraud was held earlier, on January 26th, when the Raptors faced the Los Angeles Clippers. This time, McCormack is reported to have wagered $7,000 in total, which resulted in a bookie paying out the punter a sum exceeding $33,000 after an alleged eye injury took Porter out of the match not even five minutes after it had begun.
We should point out that Porter was not named by the prosecution. Instead, they repeatedly referred to an individual as “Player 1.” The way this player was described, however, made it clear that the person in question was Porter.
Both Defendants Agreed to a $50,000 Bond
At present, neither individual is being held in custody, seeing as they each paid a $50,000 bail in order to be released. Pham was also released on bail and is to remain at home until further hearings, but he had to pay a far more substantial $750,000.
Jeffrey Chartier, representing McCormack, said that “no case is a slam dunk” and that more information on what proof the government will present will be made known to the public in the future. Chartier was the only lawyer of any of the defendants to address the media on Thursday.
The developments surrounding Porter’s betting scandal are just one of several gambling-related events that shook US sports this week, the first being the plea of guilt of Shohei Ohtani’s ex-interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. A situation that much more closely resembled Porter’s was that of former MLB player Tucupita Marcano, who was declared banned for life over betting for his own team to lose.
