Federal Criminal Cases and Organized Crime

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say 12 of 31 defendants in an alleged mafia‑run, high‑stakes poker cheating scheme are set to enter plea agreements in the coming days, part of an FBI crackdown on illegal gambling that also ensnared former NBA players Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones. All 31 appeared Wednesday in U.S. District Court, but a source told CBS News that Billups is not among those expected to plead and he, Jones and others continue to maintain not‑guilty pleas. The poker case, one of two related indictments that together charge 34 people, centers on private games in Manhattan and Las Vegas that prosecutors say used X‑ray tables, rigged shuffling machines, hidden cameras and special glasses to read marked cards, allegedly defrauding wealthy victims of more than $7 million. Court filings say the government has turned over more than 100,000 pages of financial and phone records and hundreds of pages of surveillance photographs and pole‑camera footage from a Lexington Avenue game overseen, according to prosecutors, by Genovese family member Angelo Ruggiero Jr. and Bonanno associate Thomas “Juice” Gelardo. A second, parallel case focuses on allegedly insider‑informed basketball bets using injury information. The pleas, if finalized, would mark a significant step toward resolving one of the highest‑profile recent federal gambling cases at the intersection of organized crime, sports and high‑end poker.