By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two additional defendants have been criminally charged in New York over a gambling scheme that led the National Basketball Association to ban former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for life.
According to court papers released on Thursday, Mahmud Mollah and Timothy McCormack conspired with previously charged Long Phi Pham to bet that Porter would fall short of specified performance targets in two games, knowing that he planned to quit early for alleged health reasons.
Porter was not named in the criminal complaint, which calls him “Player 1”, but its specifics match details about him, including the NBA lifetime ban on April 17.
Prosecutors said Porter played four minutes in a Jan. 26 game against the Los Angeles Clippers before saying he had an eye injury, and three minutes in a March 20 game against the Sacramento Kings before he said he was ill.
A criminal complaint said Mollah, of Lansdale, Pennsylvania, allegedly reaped a $1.13 million profit from “under” prop bets on the March 20 game, while McCormack, of Manhattan, collected more than $69,000 betting on both games.
The complaint includes a March 20 surveillance photo showing Mollah, McCormack and Pham sitting together in a restaurant at an Atlantic City, New Jersey casino operated by a betting company that took bets for that day’s Raptors game.
Lawyers for Mollah and McCormack did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn said a federal judge set bail at $50,000 for both defendants.
Bail was set on Wednesday for Pham at $750,000, despite prosecutors’ request that he be detained.
Prosecutors said Pham, of Brooklyn, was caught on Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport trying to board a flight to Australia on a one-way ticket.
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 Jonathan Stempel in New York, editing by Ed Osmond)