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Oct. 25, 2025, 9:19 AM EDTBy Katherine DoyleKUALA LUMPUR— President Donald Trump arrives in Malaysia on Sunday for his first visit to Asia since returning to office, a three-nation tour through Malaysia, Japan and South Korea that is expected to culminate in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as tensions between the world’s two biggest economies tick higher.“The first message is Trump the peacemaker. The second is Trump the moneymaker,” said Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And then, of course, with the meeting with China, I think what everybody’s expecting is that there’s probably not going to be a big trade deal, but there will be an effort to de-escalate or put a pause on the situation.”Trade is expected to dominate the week. Aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump said he would subsidize U.S. farmers if he did not reach a deal with China, and that he planned to discuss the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war with Xi, saying he’d like to see China “help us out.”The president also suggested he was angling for a meeting with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un, even as the White House has said that no meeting is planned. “You know, they don’t have a lot of telephone service,” Trump said, before urging reporters to “put out the word.” In Kuala Lumpur, Trump is scheduled to meet with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim before attending a working dinner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders. Malaysia, this year’s ASEAN chair, has set “Inclusivity and Sustainability” as the summit theme. The White House said Trump will also join a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand, whose deadly border conflict he has claimed credit for helping to resolve. During his first term, Trump attended the annual ASEAN summit only once.Sandwiched between the summit in Kuala Lumpur and South Korea’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, Trump will pay an official visit to Japan, his fourth, for talks with the new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and an audience with Japanese Emperor Naruhito.Takaichi, a conservative protege of the late Shinzo Abe, has pledged to raise defense spending to 2% of GDP by March, two years ahead of schedule, a target likely to draw praise from Trump, who has pressed for allies to spend more. She has also raised the idea of revisiting the U.S.-Japan trade deal announced in July. Trump and Abe forged a close personal relationship during his first term, before Abe’s assassination in 2022. Trump will also meet with business executives and visit American troops while in Japan, a country that hosts more U.S. service members than any other in the world.In South Korea on Wednesday, Trump is slated to address business leaders at APEC, hold a bilateral meeting with the president, and attend a leaders’ dinner that evening.Topping the agenda at every stop is trade, with negotiators still ironing out the details of pacts with South Korea and Japan and taking steps towards agreements with China and Malaysia. U.S. and Chinese delegations are meeting in Malaysia over the weekend ahead of Trump’s arrival in Kuala Lumpur.“It’s not the U.S. president coming to Asia to meet the multilateral schedule; it’s the U.S. president coming to Asia and then bending the multilateral schedule around his schedule,” said Cha, noting Trump is skipping the U.S.–ASEAN leaders meeting, the East Asia Summit, and formal APEC sessions. Even so, Cha said regional leaders are eager to engage.“Everybody still wants to cut a deal with the U.S. president,” he said. “They all want tariff relief, and they will try to make a deal to achieve that.”Central to the trip is Trump’s anticipated meeting with Xi in South Korea on Thursday, though Beijing has not yet confirmed the session. Top officials from the U.S. and China are sitting down in Malaysia on Saturday to find a way forward after Trump threatened new tariffs of 100% on Chinese goods and other trade limits starting on November 1 in response to China’s expanded export controls on rare earth minerals and related technologies. Trump has said he plans to raise fentanyl, accusing China of failing to curb the flow of precursor chemicals, and a senior administration official said China’s purchases of Russian oil will also be on the table. Trump said he also expects to discuss Taiwan. “We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us,” Trump said Friday, adding he expects “a good meeting” even as he has intermittently threatened to call it off over trade frictions, including soybean purchases.Both leaders want the optics and tactical aspect of this meeting to go well, a person familiar with the meeting planning said. Analysts urged caution about what a leader-level encounter can deliver. “During Trump’s first term, high-level exchanges with China did not prevent him from later taking a harder line,” said Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy. “So the symbolic value of summit diplomacy should not be overstated.”Earlier this week, a senior administration official pushed back on speculation that Trump could reprise his 2019 encounter with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, when he made a surprise visit to the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas in an effort to revive nuclear talks that had collapsed. Trump said before leaving Washington on Friday that he “would like” to meet with Kim, but was unsure whether it would happen on this trip. Kim says he will negotiate only if the U.S. recognizes North Korea as a nuclear power, and has only further strengthened his weapons programs since Trump’s first term. “I think they are sort of a nuclear power,” Trump seemed to acknowledge as he began his journey to Asia on Friday, perhaps paving the way for a possible meeting. “They’ve got a lot of nuclear weapons. I’ll say that.”Katherine DoyleKatherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News. Carol E. Lee, Jennifer Jett, Peter Guo, Arata Yamamoto and Stella Kim contributed.

- Latest News - October 25, 2025

KUALA LUMPUR— President Donald Trump arrives in Malaysia on Sunday for his first visit to Asia since returning to office, a three-nation tour through Malaysia, Japan and South Korea that.

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Oct. 25, 2025, 5:15 AM EDTBy Jeremy Mikula and Melinda YaoA portion of the White House gets demolished, officials thwart a potential mass shooting, and a media company is up for grabs. Test your knowledge of this week’s news, and take last week’s quiz here.Jeremy MikulaJeremy Mikula is the weekend director of platforms for NBC News.Melinda YaoI am an intern for data graphics team.David Hickey, Lara Horwitz and Kaylah Jackson contributed.

- Latest News - October 25, 2025

A portion of the White House gets demolished, officials thwart a potential mass shooting, and a media company is up for grabs.

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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.

- Latest News - October 25, 2025

People familiar with pardon discussions told NBC News that top White House officials became concerned about attempts from outsiders to profit from the clemency process.

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Oct. 24, 2025, 6:06 PM EDT / Updated Oct. 25, 2025, 12:21 AM EDTBy Tim StellohA wealthy Florida family. A pair of hit men. A law professor gunned down in his home.The plot to murder Daniel Markel more than a decade ago hinged on a bitter custody dispute and took years to unravel. Earlier this month, a grandmother who’d once worked as a bookkeeper for her family’s dental practice became the fifth defendant sent to prison for their role in the sprawling conspiracy.Here’s a look at the web of defendants, the man they were convicted of killing and the woman at the center of the plot, who has never been charged with a crime.DATELINE FRIDAY SNEAK PEEK: Deadly Mischief01:54Florida legal scholar gunned down at homeDaniel MarkelA Harvard graduate and prominent legal scholar at Florida State University, Daniel Markel focused on the philosophy of punishment and spent years examining the subject to better inform sentencing decisions in the criminal justice system, recalled a university colleague, Mark Spottswood. Markel, 41, was also a devoted father of two young boys and, at the time of his death, locked in a bitter dispute with his ex-wife over custody of their children.On July 18, 2014, Markel had just arrived at his Tallahassee home when a gunman shot him twice in the head and fled. The scholar was pronounced dead the next day.A neighbor provided what turned out to be a critical piece of evidence in the killing: After hearing gunfire in Markel’s garage, the man dialed 911 and reported what he saw — a light-colored Toyota Prius driving away.A romance gone sourWendi AdelsonThen a law student, Wendi Adelson met Markel in 2004 on a dating site and they married two years later. Initially, the couple was in love — “They were, like, visibly lovey-dovey,” recalled a friend of Markel’s, Josh Berman — but by 2012 the relationship had soured and Adelson filed for divorce.Wendi Adelson exits the courtroom for a lunch break on Aug. 25.Alicia Devine / Tallahassee Democrat / USA Today Network via Imagn Adelson wanted to move their boys from Tallahassee to South Florida, where her family lived, but a family court judge denied the request, saying that she hadn’t met her “burden of proof that a relocation was in the best interest of the minor children.” What was left of the relationship between Markel and the Adelsons deteriorated.“It was toxic,” Steven Epstein, an attorney and author of a book about the case, “Extreme Punishment,” told “Dateline.” “Definitely toxic.”After Markel’s death, Adelson described her ex to authorities as “litigious” and said that he’d treated her badly, a video of the interview shows. She wondered if someone could have gunned him down not because they hated him, she said in the interview, “but because they thought this was good somehow.”During their divorce, Adelson told authorities, one of her older brothers joked about hiring a hit man to kill Markel. Her parents, she added, had “more reason to dislike Danny than almost anyone else. He hurt their daughter.”In interviews with police and in court testimony, Wendi Adelson has repeatedly denied being involved in Markel’s murder and has never been charged with a crime.A $35,000 job and a confession Luis RiveraLuis Rivera was the driver of the Prius seen pulling away from Markel’s home. A member of the Latin Kings who lived in Miami, Rivera was arrested in connection with the murder in the summer of 2016, two years after Markel was gunned down. In exchange for a reduced sentence, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and confessed, telling authorities that he was paid $35,000 for his role in the killing and identifying the custody dispute as a possible motive, a video of the interview shows.Luis Rivera takes the stand to testify in 2019.Tori Schneider / Tallahassee Democrat / USA Today Network via Imagn“The lady wants her two kids back,” Rivera recalled the man he identified as the gunman saying. “She wants full custody.” Rivera was sentenced to 19 years in prison.The connectionSigfredo GarciaThe man Rivera identified as the gunman, Sigfredo Garcia, was also arrested in the summer of 2016. He pleaded not guilty and was convicted of first-degree murder after a trial three years later. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.Sigfredo Garcia during his sentencing in 2019.Tori Schneider / Tallahassee Democrat / USA Today Network via ImagnGarcia provided a link between Markel’s killing and the Adelsons: The mother of his children, Katherine Magbanua, had not only dated the protective older brother who’d made the hit man joke, she was on the payroll of the Adelson Institute, a dental practice owned by Wendi Adelson’s parents, according to Georgia Cappleman, chief assistant state attorney in Florida’s 2nd Judicial Circuit.On the drive from Tallahassee to Miami, Rivera told authorities, Garcia called Magbanua and said: “Everything is done. Make sure you have my money. I’m on my way.”Working for the AdelsonsKatherine MagbanuaAlthough the dental practice was paying Katherine Magbanua, it didn’t appear she was doing any work for the practice, Cappleman told “Dateline.” And she’d gotten other perks from the family, including help paying for her breast augmentation surgery, according to Jason Newlin, chief investigator with the Leon County State Attorney’s Office.Katherine Magbanua testifies in the trial of Donna Adelson on Aug. 26.Alicia Devine / Tallahassee Democrat / USA Today Network via ImagnMagbanua was arrested in October 2016 and charged with murder, conspiracy and solicitation in Markel’s killing. She denied the allegations and testified at a trial three years later that she’d done legitimate work for the Adelsons and paid for her surgery with cash tips from a job promoting liquor brands.A mistrial was declared after the jury deadlocked, but during a retrial three years later, Magbanua was convicted of all charges and sentenced to life in prison.The protective older brotherCharles AdelsonWendi Adelson’s protective older brother was a periodontist who ran a lucrative implant practice north of Miami and drove a Ferrari with a distinctive license plate — “Maestro.” He’d been recorded at a Miami restaurant appearing to implicate himself in the crime, according to prosecutors, and was arrested in 2022 on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation of murder.During his 2023 trial, Charles Adelson denied that he played a role in Markel’s killing and testified that he was the victim of a deadly extortion scheme: After Markel’s killing, he said, Magbanua told him if he didn’t pay one-third of a million dollars in 48 hours, he’d be dead.Charlie Adelson in court on Nov. 1, 2023.Alicia Devine / Tallahassee Democrat / USA Today Network via ImagnCharles Adelson testified that he paid her what he could — $138,000 in cash — and agreed to pay $3,000 a month more through checks from his family’s dental practice.Magbanua took the stand and provided testimony that was far different from her earlier statements. She said she’d lied in her trials to save herself and pointed to Charles Adelson as the one responsible for coming up with the murder plot. Magbanua also acknowledged recruiting Garcia to carry out the killing.On Nov. 6, 2023, after three hours of deliberations, a jury convicted Charles Adelson of all charges. He was sentenced to life in prison.Florida mom arrested in connection with son’s murder-for-hire killing of brother-in-law01:39Matriarch on a missionDonna AdelsonDays after her son’s conviction, the matriarch of the Adelson family was arrested in dramatic fashion: She and her husband were taken into custody at Miami International Airport with one-way tickets to Vietnam that they’d booked on Nov. 7 — one day after Charles Adelson’s conviction — and after she’d been recorded on a jailhouse phone call saying they were “looking for places where there’s no extradition.” (Vietnam has no official extradition treaty with the United States.)Donna Adelson listens to her defense team’s opening statements in the courtroom in Tallahassee, Fla., on Aug. 22.Alicia Devine / Pool via AP fileDonna Adelson was charged with murder, solicitation and conspiracy. She pleaded not guilty.During a nearly two-week trial that began in August, prosecutors portrayed Donna Adelson as a vengeful mother-in-law who was furious over Markel’s efforts to limit her contact with her grandchildren and helped orchestrate the murder plot.Among the key pieces of evidence presented at the proceedings was a phone call Donna Adelson made to Charles Adelson after an undercover FBI agent approached her and pretended to be affiliated with the murder plot. Cappleman, the prosecutor, described what Donna Adelson said in the recorded call — she told her son that the agent’s comments involved “both of us” — as a “confession.”Donna Adelson’s lawyer, Jackie Fulford, acknowledged that her client was an overinvolved grandparent, but Fulford said she was a “meddler, not a murderer.” Prosecutors, Fulford added, didn’t have a single piece of evidence connecting Donna Adelson to the killing.On Sept. 4, after just a few hours of deliberation, a jury convicted Donna Adelson of all charges. In a victim impact statement delivered immediately afterward, Markel’s father posed a brief question to Donna Adelson.“Was it worth it?” Phil Markel said.A month later, the 75-year-old was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.Tim StellohTim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.

- Latest News - October 25, 2025

Five people are in prison for their roles in the murder-for-hire plot in the death of Florida legal scholar Daniel Markel, among them, his mother-in-law and family matriarch, Donna Adelson.

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Oct. 24, 2025, 6:50 PM EDTBy Daniel Arkin, Chloe Atkins, Jonathan Dienst, Erik Ortiz and Rich SchapiroFederal prosecutors allege a Georgia man named John Mazzola — nickname “John South” — played on the “Cheating Team” in rigged poker games in Manhattan and Miami. The brazen, high-tech scheme was backed by the Mafia and raked in millions of dollars, according to an indictment unsealed this week.At least some of this came as news to Mazzola’s wife.“We don’t even own our own home. He drives a piece-of-crap truck. They can check every account,” Tasha Mazzola said in a phone interview Friday.“I can tell you, he doesn’t even know half of those people on the list,” she added, referring to the 30 other defendants charged in what investigators dubbed “Operation Royal Flush.” She said her husband hasn’t played poker in New York City “in years” after he was robbed of his shoes and other belongings at gunpoint during a game.The government’s 22-page indictment suggests there is more to the story. In prosecutors’ telling, Mazzola was part of a criminal plot to lure big-fish gamblers to ritzy tables surreptitiously outfitted with card-scanning devices, X-rays and other cheating equipment. Mazzola, 43, also allegedly participated in an armed robbery to steal a manipulated shuffling machine.He is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and robbery conspiracy. He appeared before a judge Thursday, and he was released with what authorities called a substantial bail package.The defendants’ backstories and their alleged criminal enterprise were starting to come into focus Friday, a day after federal officials announced two extraordinary investigations into the parallel worlds of illegal underground gambling and insider sports betting.The poker probe ensnared Chauncey Billups, head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and a dozen associates of the “Five Families,” the Italian Mafia clans that have long ruled organized crime in the New York area.“The fraud is mind-boggling,” FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters at a news conference Thursday, referring to the alleged wrongdoing as a “criminal enterprise that envelops both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra.” At least one of the mobsters charged is an alleged captain in the Gambino crime family whose first felony conviction dates back to 1999.But some defendants appear to have been living in relative anonymity. Officials have released little information about Sophia Wei — nickname “Pookie” — the only woman charged in the poker ring case.In an interview on Friday, Wei’s former landlord in Queens, New York, said he formed a negative impression of her during the decade she lived in his building.“She was nasty. She was arrogant. She was a diva. She wouldn’t let me come upstairs if I needed to do a repair,” said Ashley Scharge, 66, who lives in Bayside. “Then she skipped out on me. She left my place in shambles, stuff all over the place — clothes, food.”Wei did not return requests for comment on Friday.In the indictment, federal prosecutors characterized Wei as a member of a “Cheating Team.” Billups was a “Face Card,” a high-profile person who the orchestrators believed could help draw in unsuspecting gamblers to fixed tables.Billups and Wei can be seen together in a photograph obtained by NBC News. The picture was taken in May 2019 during a game organized by Wei at a high-end hotel in New York City, where cocktail waitresses offered massages and beverages to the attendees as they played.Chauncey Billups and Sophia Wei, also known as “Pookie,” playing poker.Obtained by NBC NewsThe raft of court documents unsealed Thursday sketch out how the alleged cheating worked — and, in at least one case, when it came close to going off the rails.In the middle of a game in Las Vegas in 2019, Wei and other defendants realized Billups was winning too many improbable hands — thanks to the rigged shuffling machine. In text messages that were included in the government’s detention memorandum, Wei suggests that Billups attempt to avert suspicion by losing on purpose.In all, prosecutors say the scheme netted more than $7 million over six years.The FBI said it is still pursuing other leads.“It’s like anything. You peel back the onion, there’s more layers,” said Christopher Raia, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office. “This investigation is very much ongoing.”Daniel ArkinDaniel Arkin is a national reporter at NBC News.Chloe AtkinsChloe Atkins reports for the NBC News National Security and Law Unit, based in New York.Jonathan DienstJonathan Dienst is chief justice contributor for NBC News and chief investigative reporter for WNBC-TV in New York.Erik OrtizErik Ortiz is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.Rich Schapiro Rich Schapiro is a reporter with the NBC News national security unit.Kate Reilly contributed.

- Latest News - October 25, 2025

Federal prosecutors allege a Georgia man named John Mazzola — nickname “John South” — played on the “Cheating Team” in rigged poker games in Manhattan and Miami.

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