Portland Trail Blazers head coach and National Basketball Association hall of famer Chauncey Billups is expected to plead not guilty to federal charges that he helped lure unsuspecting players to rigged poker games when he appears in Brooklyn federal court Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prosecutors said Billups was one of the alleged scheme\u2019s a \u201cface cards\u201d who used his celebrity to attract high-rollers to poker tables that were equipped with x-ray technology and altered shuffling machines. The poker games were backed by organized crime families, according to the indictment<\/a>, which was revealed Oct. 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Billups, who spent 17 seasons in the NBA and was the 2004 NBA Finals MVP, is one of 31 defendants charged in the scheme, all of whom are due in court Monday.\u00a0\u00a0They\u2019re facing various charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Federal prosecutors signaled that they expect a number of the defendants will ultimately opt to plead guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlthough it is too early for the government and any of the defendants to engage in substantial plea negotiations, the government and defense counsel for several defendants have begun productive discussions that the government hopes will ultimately lead to resolutions as to several defendants without the need for a trial,\u201d prosecutors wrote in a court filing ahead of Monday\u2019s status conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The evidence against Billups and his codefendants \u2013 including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier\u00a0and former player and coach Damon Jones \u2013 comes from electronic devices, surveillance photographs, pole camera footage, bank records and phone records, prosecutors said.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Less than a week after the charges against Billups and others were revealed, the NBA announced<\/a> that it was undertaking a review of how the league can protect itself from sports betting and whether it’s doing enough to educate coaches, players and other personnel about the “dire risks” gambling could pose to their careers, according to an NBA league memo obtained by ABC News. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Billups and Rozier were immediately placed on leave by their teams when the charges were announced, the NBA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n