NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors intend to bring new charges against Terry Rozier related to their sports gambling case against the NBA player and others. A lawyer in the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York said Monday that it intends to file a superseding indictment against Rozier, alleging that he “solicited and accepted a bribe.”
The revelation came on Monday during a hearing before a federal judge in Rozier’s case after his lawyer had asked the court to dismiss the case against him. During the hearing, Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, said that prosecutors had told him two hours earlier that they intended to bring new charges. Rozier has pleaded not guilty to the original charges.
“We have developed evidence that Mr. Rozier solicited and accepted a bribe,” Kaitlin Ferrell, a prosecutor for the Eastern District, said Monday during a hearing.
Prosecutors will present the charges to a grand jury. The prosecutors allege that Rozier accepted a bribe and will argue that he committed sports bribery and honest services fraud. A prosecutor said that Rozier had deprived “the NBA and the Charlotte Hornets of Mr. Rozier’s honest services.” A lawyer for the Eastern District said they intend to file the charges by mid-May.
Rozier is currently facing two federal wire fraud charges from an October arrest and indictment. Federal prosecutors allege that he told a friend, Deniro Laster, that he would leave a March 2023 game early while he was still playing for the Hornets. Prosecutors say Laster then sold that information to sports gamblers, who used it to place wagers on his playing time.
Rozier was traded to the Miami Heat the next season. The Heat waived him earlier this month.
The NBA had put him on leave after the charges were made public, though an arbitrator ruled he must still be paid his $26.4 million salary.
He is expected again in court on June 10th for a status hearing on his case.
Rozier and five other men are facing charges as part of what federal prosecutors say is a sprawling case in which non-public information on NBA players was sold and traded to sports gamblers, who then wagered on it. Seven men were charged in the case, brought last October, but one, Damon Jones, an 11-year NBA veteran, has indicated he will plead guilty. A hearing is set for Tuesday in which he will change his plea in front of the federal judge overseeing the case.
Jones will be the first defendant in that case to plead guilty. He will also plead guilty in the case brought along with the sport gambling one, where he and nearly 30 others were charged with running a rigged poker game ring. Chauncey Billups was charged in that case as well. He has pleaded not guilty.
