Banned former Raptor to plead guilty in gambling case, court records show

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July 3, 2024 – 7:57 PM PDT

(Reuters) – Former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter is set to plead guilty in a case related to the sports gambling scandal that earned him a lifetime ban from the NBA, according to court records seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

An “information sheet” filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn on Tuesday cited the related case as one charging four men with conspiring to cash in on bets that Porter would miss certain performance targets in two games while knowing that he planned to exit early for alleged health reasons.

Porter is scheduled to appear in Brooklyn federal court for a hearing on his plea agreement on July 10, court records showed. The records did not detail the specific charge or charges against Porter.

A criminal complaint filed last month against four men – Ammar Awawdeh, Timothy McCormack, Mahmud Mollah and Long Phi Pham – did not identify Porter by name but contained known accusations against him and quoted an NBA press release announcing his ban.

The complaint said the four co-conspirators made more than $1 million on the games by betting that Porter would not hit specified statistical targets.

Prosecutors said Porter played just four minutes in a Jan. 26 game against the Los Angeles Clippers before exiting with an alleged eye injury, and three minutes in a March 20 game against the Sacramento Kings before he said he was ill.

In banning Porter, the NBA said he also placed 13 bets on league games, including multi-game parlay bets that included one in which he wagered that the Raptors would lose.

^{Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; additional reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Peter Rutherford}

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