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November 1, 2025

Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleNov. 1, 2025, 6:42 AM EDTBy Chloe Atkins and Corky SiemaszkoWhen former NBA player Damon Jones, who has been accused of feeding inside information to sports gamblers, first filed for bankruptcy in 2013, he had to list his Yorkshire Terrier as an asset.The unnamed pooch was valued, according to the court documents, at just $1.A decade later, Jones was a few months away from being evicted from a luxury Houston apartment building when prosecutors allege he texted a co-conspirator and urged him to bet on the Milwaukee Bucks against the Los Angeles because a top Lakers player, believed to be LeBron James, was out with an injury. Jones went from relative anonymity as a former NBA player and coach to the forefront of one of the biggest gambling scandals in modern sports when he was named by federal prosecutors last week in two separate indictments allegedly involving gambling and fixed, mob-linked poker games. NBC News reviewed more than 150 pages of court documents from Jones, including financial forms, spanning more than a decade that show persistent financial problems for the ex-athlete. In addition to the eviction proceedings, Jones listed his 2016 NBA championship ring as collateral for a personal loan and was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. “Operation Nothing But Bet” is one of two sprawling federal investigations into illegal gambling that were unveiled Oct. 23, the other being a probe of rigged high-stakes poker games allegedly backed by the Mafia called “Operation Royal Flush” which led to the arrests of several people, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. Prosecutors said the evidence in the latter case includes “financial records, telephone records, cellphone records and texts, cellphone extractions and location information, the contents of Apple iCloud accounts, witness testimony, and surveillance photographs.”Jones has yet to enter a plea, but is due in federal court for his arraignment in New York. Jones’ lawyer declined to comment. Jones’ current address, according to available records, appears to be the Houston apartment that a property management company tried to evict him from in June 2023, claiming he owed around $5,600 in rent, records show.The management company dismissed the case after Jones failed to appear in court. But in August 2023, the company filed another eviction notice against Jones, this time claiming he owed more than $11,000 in back rent. Once again, Jones failed to appear in court and the judge issued a default judgment in favor of the company, granting it possession of the apartment and slapping Jones with a monetary judgment of $11,240, records show. When the court tried to mail Jones a copy of the default judgment, the notice was returned due to an insufficient address. The management company has not responded to NBC News’ request for comment. Jones’ financial woes go back at least to 2013, when his initial bankruptcy case was dismissed. Two years later, Jones filed for bankruptcy again and this time, according to court records, he reported $500,000 to $1 million in liabilities and claimed to have assets in the range of $100,001 to $500,000.Jones, those records showed, owed around $640,000 to creditors and $47,000 to the Bellagio Hotels and Casino for “breach of contract/confession of judgement.”It’s not clear what happened with that bankruptcy case. Bellagio did not respond to an inquiry from NBC News. But in 2019, another man who said Jones owed him money surfaced, court records show.Scott Kerr filed a civil complaint against Jones seeking monetary relief of $100,000 or less. According to the filing, Jones borrowed $10,000 from Kerr. That, plus a $4,000 fee, was supposed to be paid by Aug. 28, 2017.Jones failed to pay back the loan and the collateral Jones put up to secure the loan from Kerr was his 2016 NBA championship ring, according to the filing, which added that he also failed to provide the collateral.Kerr wasn’t the only person Jones allegedly stiffed. Between October 2023 and November 2024, Jones was hit with complaints from three men saying he failed to repay them thousands of dollars in loans. One of them, Antonio Hooper, said in a November 2024 filing that Jones had agreed in writing to pay him $20,000 in return for a $4,500 loan. His filing included screenshots of text exchanges with Jones, including one in which the former NBA player mentions “Bron” being unable to “get over that Sports Illustrated article he did.” Hooper, in a telephone interview, said Jones never paid him back. He said the reason he was asking for $20,000 is that he lent Jones more money after the initial $4,500 loan. He also said he and Jones have mutual friends in the NBA.“I don’t know what article Damon was talking about,” said Hooper, who said he runs a youth basketball program in Houston. “But I have a friend who was looking for a job in the NBA and Damon put him on the phone with LeBron for an interview. He didn’t get the job and LeBron didn’t like Damon trading on his name. He didn’t appreciate that.”James did not immediately respond to a request for comment via the Lakers.Jones was one of more than 30 people arrested in the operations. Also nabbed was Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who is accused of faking an injury to take himself out of a game in 2023 when he played for the Charlotte Hornets, giving a heads up to a friend who, in turn, “sold that tip” to gamblers betting on that Hornets versus New Orleans Pelicans game.Like Jones, Rozier is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. And like Jones, Rozier too, has had money problems. In 2023, the IRS filed a federal tax lien in Florida against Rozier for $8.2 million in unpaid taxes from 2021. In August 2022, a construction company filed a lien against Rozier for over $270,000, according to a claim filed in Florida. A year later, Rozier paid off the lien except for $20,000, court documents showed.Rozier has yet to enter a plea to the federal charges. Rozier’s attorney pushed back on allegations that his client owed millions to the government.“The federal tax lien story is a nothing-burger. His total tax liability was about $8 million. Between the CPAs and the IRS, something happened with his electronic filing, so the IRS issued a lien on the entire amount. The actual tax deficiency ended up being $3,000, and that has been paid off. We expect the now-defunct lien to be removed in the near future,” Rozier’s attorney Jim Trusty said on Friday. Chloe AtkinsChloe Atkins reports for the NBC News National Security and Law Unit, based in New York.Corky SiemaszkoCorky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.Tom Winter contributed.

September 22, 2025

Beijing promised to ‘fight back’ over Taiwan leader Tsai’s US visit. But this time it has more to lose

October 25, 2025

Oct. 24, 2025, 5:06 PM EDTBy Katherine Doyle and Matt DixonWASHINGTON — As soon as Donald Trump took office for his second term, he began using his clemency power at a steady clip. It started with the pardons of the roughly 1,500 criminal defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and continued each month, with more pardons or commutations. At the end of May, he had issued 73 clemency actions, not including all the Jan. 6 defendants. Trump once called the power to pardon “a beautiful thing.”“You got to get it right,” he told reporters during his first term. But after May, the pardons stopped. Four people familiar with discussions around pardons told NBC News that top White House officials became concerned about attempts from outsiders to profit from the clemency process, and two of those people said the White House paused on Trump issuing pardons in order to get more control over matters. These people, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to speak candidly. Another factor has been the president’s crowded agenda, which included foreign and domestic priorities, one of those people said. Two senior White House officials said chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has played a central role in reviewing pardons, became more outspoken after reports emerged that lobbyists and consultants were advertising themselves as offering access to Trump’s pardon authority for steep prices. Those officials said Wiles pushed back hard against these efforts and tightened the process to distance it from those attempting to broker influences. While it’s legal to engage lobbyists on these issues, Wiles didn’t like the look. That meant making clear to those on the outside that she would not tolerate people trying to profit from the clemency process, one of the senior White House officials said. “Chief of staff Wiles does not mess around, especially when it comes to outsiders wrongly tossing around proximity to the president to gain fortune and favor,” this person said.Urgency grew after Bloomberg reported in August that two intermediaries seeking to cash in on a burgeoning pardon economy were floating a plan to Roger Ver, a man known as Bitcoin Jesus for his early crypto evangelism, to secure a presidential pardon for him in exchange for $30 million. The White House denied any knowledge of the plan to Bloomberg. The report set off alarms inside the White House, the two White House officials and two others familiar with the discussions told NBC News. Last week, Ver reached a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve the federal tax charges brought against him. He has not yet been granted a pardon.In late May, NBC News also reported that some lobbyists had received proposals as high as $5 million to press cases before the president. More recently, an associate of former Sen. Bob Menendez, who is accused of bribing the senator with gold bars, paid $1 million to a Washington lobbyist with ties to Trump to help secure clemency, three sources told NBC New York. Lobbying disclosure filings described the payment as for “executive relief.”Fred Daibes hired lobbying firm with ties to President Trump02:08Clemency actions picked up again this month. Last week, Trump commuted the seven-year prison sentence of former New York Rep. George Santos, with the timing of the move surprising even some close allies. Trump granted another pardon this week, for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of crypto currency exchange Binance, who had previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering. Binance has ties to World Liberty Financial, which has administered many of the Trump family’s crypto projects. A pardon was not certain; Zhao’s lawyers had received conflicting signals, at times believing it would happen and other times not, a person familiar with the discussions said. In confirming Zhao’s pardon, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Zhao had been unfairly prosecuted by then-President Joe Biden’s administration, declaring that “[t]he Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”The Zhao pardon came after Trump met with Wiles and White House Counsel David Warrington on Monday again to review a new slate of candidates. The senior White House official said more people are poised for relief once the president has an opportunity to sign them. A person familiar with the discussions said that now, Wiles “is at least controlling the timing” of pardons.Others seeking relief from the president include Pras Michel, a member of the Fugees who was convicted in 2023 in a foreign lobbying and campaign finance case, according to one of the people familiar with the discussions. This person said they believe Michel is likely to receive a pardon once the president’s signings pick back up again.According to the two senior White House officials, clemency requests are received and reviewed by the White House counsel’s office, with Warrington briefing Wiles before the two meet with Trump to present a slate of candidates for the president’s consideration. Alice Johnson, who became a prominent advocate for criminal justice reform after Trump commuted her life sentence during his first term and now serves as the president’s “pardon czar,” advises the process, focusing on drug-related cases, among others, one of the officials said. The Justice Department also sends pardon requests to the White House counsel. Trump’s pardons have faced plenty of criticism, including, at times, from his own allies. Santos was released from prison this week after serving just months into his seven-year sentence. Last year, he pleaded guilty to charges of committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. His short time in political life was plagued by accusations of campaign finance violations and lying about his qualifications. Republican lawmakers who voted to expel Santos from Congress spoke out after Trump commuted Santos’ sentence.“The President has the discretion to commute sentences for people convicted of federal crimes. In this case, Santos willingly pled guilty to these crimes and then complained about having to serve his sentence,” Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., said. “The victims of his crimes still have not been made whole, including the people he stole from and the voters he defrauded. He has shown no remorse. The less than three months that he spent in prison is not justice.”George Santos speaks out for first time since prison release01:02Presidents largely have unchecked pardon power, and past presidents have also faced criticism for using it to assist allies. Biden received blowback, including from many Democrats, for issuing pre-emptive pardons for his family on his way out of office. But Trump has issued far more pardons at a consistent pace, with many going to allies or well-connected individuals. After Trump pardoned a Virginia sheriff convicted of bribery, who was a supporter of the president, Trump’s pardon attorney, Ed Martin, posted on X: “No MAGA left behind.”“Policy-wise, Trump is one of the few presidents who tried to commit to doing these pardons regularly,” one of the sources familiar with the discussions said. This person and another close to the White House said they expected the process to resume with pardons issued on symbolic dates — Juneteenth, July 4, Labor Day or before the start of the government shutdown — but it never did. The delay was not strictly due to concerns around conflicts of interest, one of the senior White House officials said, but also the president’s lack of signing time. Trump’s clemency decisions have included well-known figures and political allies — such as former reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, as well as former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was once a contestant on Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” TV show — and people whose cases revisit questions about political persecution and fairness — including a group of anti-abortion protesters and Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden who spoke out against the former president’s son. Marc Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota who is an expert on clemency, said every president favors certain types of cases. With Barack Obama, it was narcotics defendants, and with Trump, it’s white-collar cases. “What merits examination is the process being used right now. Like Biden at the end of his term, Trump appears to be using an informal, closed and opaque process to evaluate petitioners (or those like George Santos who did not even file a petition), while ignoring the thousands of people who followed the rules and submitted a clemency petition through the pardon attorney,” Osler said. “I agree with Trump that the old evaluation system for clemency needed to be demolished; but now it needs to be remade into something accessible, fair, transparent and lasting.”Leavitt said that “the Trump White House takes this process and responsibility extremely seriously.” “Each clemency request is intensely vetted and reviewed, and President Trump ultimately makes every clemency decision,” she added. After speculation rose this week, the White House said there have not been discussions of clemency for Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was convicted in July on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but was acquitted on more damning charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. Combs’ lawyers have previously told NBC News they have been pursuing a pardon for their client.“There’s been no paper pushed on it,” one of the White House officials said, referring to the formal vetting process required for clemency applications. Trump has occasionally declined to go forward on recommended cases, a senior White House official said, and sometimes requests additional information before making a final decision. The president has been outspoken granting clemency to those he believes were treated unfairly by the justice system, and seekers have found success in drawing attention to their treatment. When Trump commuted Santos’ sentence, he remarked on the “long stretches of time” the former congressman had spent in solitary confinement, saying Santos, “by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated.”Recognizing Trump’s instincts for what he views as deliverance, one of the people familiar with discussions expressed hope that Trump would not extend similar leniency to Combs, who was convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. On Oct. 3, a federal judge sentenced Diddy to 50 months in prison.“I hope he doesn’t pardon Diddy,” this person said. “But I could see him doing it because he might think he’s served enough.” Katherine DoyleKatherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News. Matt DixonMatt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.Melanie Zanona contributed.

October 27, 2025

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