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mmm..one name comes to mind
July 20, 2007 -- THE FBI is investigating an NBA referee who allegedly was betting on basketball games - including ones he was officiating during the past two seasons - as part of an organized-crime probe in the Big Apple, The Post has learned.
The investigation, which began more than a year ago, is zeroing in on blockbuster allegations that the referee was making calls that affected the point spread to guarantee that he - and the hoods who had their hooks in him - cashed in on large bets.
Federal agents are set to arrest the referee and a cadre of mobsters and their associates who lined their pockets, sources said.
"These are dangerous people [the referee] was involved with," a source said.
One source close to the probe counted the number of games on which the ref and his wiseguy buddies scored windfalls in the "double digits."
NBA Commissioner David Stern is aware of the investigation and has a report about the referee on his desk, another source said.
The official, whose name was withheld, allegedly wagered on games during the 2005-06 and 2006-07 NBA seasons.
James Margolin, an FBI spokesman, declined comment on the latest black eye for professional sports.
The sources indicated the referee apparently had a gambling problem, slipped into debt and fell prey to mob thugs.
"That's how he got himself into this predicament" by wagering with mob-connected bookies, one source said.
Professional basketball has remained largely unscathed by allegations of game-fixing, although college basketball has been rocked by several scandals involving point-shaving by players, but not officials.
One of the most recent was a Boston College point-shaving scam arranged in the 1980s by mobster Henry Hill, who bribed several players. Hill later became a government informant, and his life was depicted in the movie "GoodFellas."
Having a referee in their pockets provides a two-fold bonanza to game fixers.
Gamblers would be able to directly cash in by betting on games where they knew the point spread was compromised.
But having a ref in their pocket could prove even more lucrative to crooks in a bookmaking syndicate.
Bookmakers hope to encourage an equal amount of betting on each team and make their money on the "vigorish," which is typically 10 percent of a losing bet.
But armed with the inside information, the bookmaking syndicate could set an artificial point spread that would encourage large "layoff" bets from other bookies carrying too much action on one team, that were likely now to lose.
An FBI organized-crime squad in the bureau's flagship New York office is handling the case, but the referee traveled the country officiating various games on which he allegedly bet.
It was not determined which games were allegedly affected by the referee's actions, or how much money may have been won by him and his cohorts.
The FBI got wind of the scheme while conducting a separate mob investigation.
The most prominent American sport- gambling scandal in recent history involved Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose, who was banned from baseball in 1989 for betting on his own team.
Based largely on testimony of two Rose associates, Ron Peters and Paul Janszen, Major League Baseball determined that from 1985 through 1987, Rose bet on baseball, including 52 Reds games in 1987, at a minimum of $10,000 a game.
All of Rose's bets on Cincinnati were to win.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07202007...rray_weiss.htm
mmm..one name comes to mind
We'll see if this story actually plays out.
I don't see that this would be anything to celebrate, though.
DAMN! I just heard about this one, Its surprising but at the same time its not surprising
Who's celebrating?
Now Sun and Mav fan have more excuses to hide behind!
This extends far beyond the Suns and Mavs, so hopefully this doesn't lead to petty excuse-making for those teams failures.
I guarantee you that this is just the tip of the iceberg. By the time every piece of dirt is dug up, I'm predicting we'll all see David Stern led away in handcuffs.
As much I would like for it to be Bennett Salvatore, I'm inclined to agree regarding JC. Salvatore's just a ing moron.
Given how long the investigation has been ongoing -- and I would have to think that the NBA has been consulted to some degree to determine if calls made by this official were in any way dubious -- I would think that the implicated official would NOT be someone with a high profile.
It wouldn't make sense to me that the league would allow a targeted official work in huge games, so I would think that you could immediately discount all 12 officials who worked the Finals: Javie, Callahan, Derosa, Bavetta, Fryer, Salvatore, D. Crawford, Forte, Rush, Clark, Delaney, and Mauer.
I would also think that you could probably discount officials who worked late into the playoffs as well for the same reason, so that would take Tom Washington, Greg Willard, Monty McCutchen, Jack Nies, Sean Corbin, Ron Garretson and those guys out of the picture in my mind.
It also has to be someone who's been in the league for a few years at least -- and someone who can consistently wield some power late in games -- so some of the really young officials would likely seem out of the question.
It will be interesting to see who is the target, if this story has legs.
Screw having excuses to hide behind.
If all the news comes out, fans will know for a fact that their team lost X game because it was ing fixed. If this is for real, this is just an epic disaster for the NBA.
Maybe JC threw TD out of the game because he had money riding on the Mavs that night.
I disagree with the latter point. I think this is probably an isolated incident. There are too many officials who call the game correctly and consistently for me to believe that there is some widespread conspiracy involving officials fixing games for the league.
Do officials occasionally make calls that favor one team or another? Sure. But I think that is a vestige of some of the old school officials believing that they have a responsibility to keep games compe ive and make for interesting endings. If the league truly had a desire to see particular teams win or advance at playoff time, there would be far too much anecdotal evidence of that. It immediately comes to my mind that in 2003, it would have certainly behooved the league to create a Game 7 of Spurs/Lakers, but even with Bavetta and Joey Crawford on the floor, Game 6 of that series in LA was officiated correctly and fairly. For that matter, the Spurs' slog through the series with Phoenix this year strikes me as quite significant evidence against any purported conspiracy.
See, I think Joey Crawford is way too self-absorbed to ever allow himself to take directions from others.
Joey Crawford is a hot head (and an idiot for trying to take on Tim) but I think he was actually a pretty decent ref. The games he calls that I've seen (primarily Pistons games) have been pretty fair, IMO. And as much as I dislike Salvatore, he's out of the equation as well.
This a huge black eye on the NBA's image regardless of whether or not it was just an isolated incident..which certainly doesn't help erase some fans' perception of bias on the part of some officials. The only good thing about this is that I can see is it will probably prompt a tighter watch on officials' performance and at ude.
gawd...que the mavs and suns trolls
wow this is disgusting
but why does this not surprise most NBA fans?
hahaha
the story's main picture on NYpost.com (where the story broke) has the floor of the 06 Finals with a heat logo that can clearly be seen....
TheTicket's morning show emailed Cuban this morning asking for a comment on the story, the reply?
"No Comment"
Come on. Cuban is starting to realize that this league and product is turning sour.
Last edited by mFFL03; 07-20-2007 at 10:05 AM.
I told you guys(FOR YEARS) the NBA was fixed.....now do you believe me. This is just the beginning.
Last edited by inconvertible; 07-20-2007 at 10:13 AM.
Everyone says people are turned off by the thug image of the NBA. Well, we have the Spurs who are the classiest team in the league win, and everyone outside of S.A. hates them and is tired of seeing them win every other year.
Now you have crooked refs.
NBA is struggling.
why would the FBI let on that they were investigating a ref? that could potentially screw up their entire investigation, because it would automatically cut off the potential to amass as much damning evidence as they could if the NBA were told and prematurely took a ref out of the rotation. Furthermore, how would the FBI know to trust David Stern or any of the top brass in the NBA? It's possible that if anyone was told by the FBI that they would spoil the investigation by letting the target of the investigation know what was happening. The FBI probably didn't know how high up the food chain the corruption went when it first began its investigation, so why would tell anyone who could have been a potential target?
Bennett Salvatore, NBA Finals 2006 game 5, I knew it was rigged
Wait..."FOR YEARS???" You only have 41 posts.
trust me....for years.
salvatorre is italian...
Kori, if you have evered banned anyone for talking about a rigged NBA. maybe you should.................................
Before I head off to my own Federal indictment, I wanted to drop in and provide the typical Suns fan comment so you guys could go crazy: Obviously, this official is a Spurs fan and told Horry to go ahead and slam Nash into the boards because the series was fixed.
The actual irony is that we know Mike D'Antoni wasn't in on this scheme or else he would have played more than 6 guys in Game 5 and let the refs take care of the rest.
On an even more serious note, FromWayDowntown is WayOff in his analysis because there is NO WAY the FBI is going to waltz into David Stern's office and be like: "one of your officials has huge gambling debts and is in deep with the mob." No, they're going to sit there, gather evidence, ensure that no one else like Stern, Ronnie Nunn, Stu Jackson, etc. is in on the scam and let at least 2 years of game-changing calls take their course. Also, mob guys are very su ious and if their boy starts getting pulled off huge games like Game 5 of the Finals, then they'll run underground.
Based on the above evidence, it could be any one of the officials, including the big names because the FBI did not want to tip anybody off so they could continue their investigation undetected. Therefore, I think it might be Salvatore because he has made some of the worst calls I've ever seen, is a dumb enough Italian (I'm Italian myself, so I know them when I see them) and some of the best evidence is from the 2006 playoffs in Game 4 of the Suns-Lakers series (Nash gets tied up with Luke Walton's foot out of bounds) and Game 5 Mavs-Heat (Wade drops 900 FTs). Then again, Javie is just greasy and slimy enough to pull this off, too so I don't rule him out.
Lastly, I think Crawford was just a hot-head and not involved in anything, and based on the interactions between Bavetta, the fans, and Barkely, I just see him being a senile old man who gets caught up in the thrill of the game and the roar of the crowd more than a crook. But like I was wrong for letting my family members train pit bulls in a house I rarely ever went to, I could be wrong about this...
Like I said I knew somthing was going on with refs in the NBA. I bet its more then one refs too. Like I said in the other thread Violet Pulmer needs to be questioned. Not being sexiest just saying she sucks so bad at being a ref its a little fishy.
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