Pablo Torre Finds Out - Hoopfellas: We Investigated the "Puppet Master" of NBA Gambling

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Basketball's high-stakes nightmare is front-page news. But Pablo has been decoding thousands of pages of court documents, while talking to two dozen sources... and keeping up with Kash Patel, to unmask the would-be kingpin hiding in plain sight. Amin Elhassan joins for a swipe through the jet-setting, sports-betting, tequila-chugging life of a man who might actually connect the mafia to the NBA.• Previously on PTFO: Moose, the Money and a Garbage-Time God• Subscribe to "Pablo Torre Finds Out" on YouTube• Subscribe to "Basketball Illuminati" with Amin Elhassan(Pablo Torre Finds Out is independently produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. The views, research and reporting expressed in this episode are solely those of Pablo Torre Finds Out, and do not reflect the work or editorial input of The Athletic or its journalists.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. So that's why I'm saying, if anybody thinks that sports betting, you've got to just understand there's going to be highs and there's going to be lows. Right after this ad. I feel like you're either about to arrest me as a member of immigration control or you are very, very well prepared for this specific episode. If it were the former, I would also have like a mask covering my face right here.

you know, like what we wore during the pandemic. Alack and alas, I'm just ready for a poker game. I mean, I don't even have time to do the nonsense with you because, A, I have a montage I'm about to press play on, and B, this shit has to do with the Department of Justice, which you might have heard about last week. All right, we're turning to the breaking news out of the NBA. The sprawling FBI probe into mafia-linked gambling and sports rigging schemes

are sending shockwaves. across the NBA and the United States. The FBI arresting a coach in Portland as well as current and former players. This is the insider trading saga for the NBA. That's what this is. That's why we are going to take heat.

Trump is coming. Big night for the NBA. When Bionna put on the show, that has now been smeared because we're talking about this story. It was really hard to pick which clips would go into that montage. There was a lot.

So many to pick from And yet there's always this incredible desire in me to nitpick, whether it's Cash Patel saying Inchrider trading or Stephen A. Smith saying Wembeiana. I think I also have to just nitpick and point out that, in fact, this investigation, which Cash Patel is declaring behind that podium, it did start underneath the Biden administration, like years ago. And also, I understand why these charges may have blindsided,

Lots of people inside both the league office here in New York City, as well as various television studios all around the country. But we were not blindsided, actually. We hear a public story finds out, I mean, we spoke to more than 20 sources for this episode we're here to do today. From the top of the NBA world to the gambling underworld as well, to the federal courthouses here in the city, to Capitol Hill in D.C., and what they told us is the following. Quote, doing anything better than Cash Patel is not a badge of honor, but you guys are even staying ahead of that guy, end quote. I urge everyone to go back to listen to our episode from July. July. A lot about Malik Beasley, but many of the names that popped up in that episode were very familiar ones that we saw in the indictments that were announced last week.

What are the code names of the two. federal investigations that resulted in these two indictments. I hate this more than anything because I know there's someone whose job it is to think of stupid puns that they're going to name their operations after. These were called Operation Royal Flush and also Operation Nothing But Bet. Yes, that's right. Operation Royal Flush alleges a multi-million dollar fraud scheme to rig illegal poker games using an elaborate setup involving everything from rigged shuffling machines to decoy cell phones,

to x-ray poker tables, to hand signals, to special contact lenses and sunglasses. Not unlike the ones you're wearing right now that can read these pre-marked cards, which is all stuff that apparently poker pros have become hip to. But the real headline here, I mean, is that two former NBA players, current Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former Cavs and Lakers assistant Damon Jones were two of the 31 defendants alongside several members, allegedly,

of which criminal enterprise, I mean? La Cosa Nostra. La Cosa Nostra. This thing of ours. This thing of ours. And if you go down the full list of defendants, by the way, you do see guys with nicknames like Flappy and Spanish G

and Albanian Bruce. and Black Tony and Black Rob, for the record. You got to differentiate because if you have multiple Tonys, you got to say which Tony we're talking about? Black Tony. Ah, got it. And what the federal indictment also wants to make clear, allegedly, is that Chauncey Billups was not only this whale

who attracted poker pros to the table under the guys that a famous multimillionaire athlete would be easy prey. Chaunty Billups was also in on the rigging, according to the indictment, which is something that I discussed with some, who has played poker personally with Chauncey Billups before and who agreed to talk to us if we did that thing where we modulate their voice.

I remember back in April 2019, I got word from different people in poker that there was this game that was going to be happening in L.A. and in Vegas. And it was run around Kevin Garnett and Chauncey Billups. And I'm like, how is this game even happening. And I'm like, this makes no sense. Like, those guys don't play poker. Like, it's weird, right? And a friend of mine who's a really, really good poker player who's playing in the game,

I remember told me that day about this hand that he played with Chauncey. And he said it was just super weird. And it was like some really big pot, maybe $200,000 or somewhere in that range, where Chauncey Billups just like put all the money in with a gutshot draw, which is just a like a really weak hand. And he hit the card on the river and ended up winning a huge pot. And so immediately his reaction was like, it's weird. Like, I don't understand this hand. Like, how can he call?

Like, I don't understand what's going on in the hand. And I mean, this is where I just got to jump in to clarify two quick things. First, a source close to Kevin Garnett told me Garnett did in fact play in a 2019 poker game in Los Angeles, linked to the same network of people indicted by federal prosecutors here. but Garnett initially apparently thought he was going to a quote after party, not a poker game, and that he chose to leave the game early. Garnett, the source goes on to say, has not yet been contacted by the Fets. So just to be clear here, Garnett was used to advertise the game as a whale,

but nothing I have seen to date suggests that he played the same role as his old friend and teammate in Minnesota, Chauncey Billups. But the poker of this all, I mean, are you a poker guy? Do you play poker? No, but I play one on TV. Yeah, you do have the whole like Chris Moneymaker-ass sunglasses on. Yeah. And I'm not either, by the way.

I'm not a poker guy either. But the other thing that I did obtain here, the second thing is the specific hand that Chauncey Billups played that my poker source was describing. And we're going to show it on our YouTube channel for all the degenerates out there. But all you to know for the time being is that on a scale of 1 to 10,

where 10 is the most suspicious, multiple poker experts laughingly describe Billups decision-making in this series of decisions as a 10, quote, it's someone who knows what the river is going to be, end quote, meaning that last card that decided the whole thing, which would be difficult to mean, of course, unless Chauncey Billups was allegedly using a rig shuffling machine in April 2019 as this indictment specifically alleges.

Chauncey Billups in Operation Royal Flesh is being charged with, basically being the guy who is a face card, rich people are like, ooh, I want to play cards with Chauncey Billups, and they'll go and they'll play with him not knowing that the game is rigged, and that he knows the game is rigged. He is honey to attract all of these bees. And Chauncey's lawyer, by the way, to be very clear about it, has said, quote, he will fight these allegations

and that he would not jeopardize, quote, his legacy's reputation and his freedom for anything, let alone a card game. But I do just need to jump into our conversation with our friend, Amin Elhassen, the former basketball operations executive with the Phoenix Suns, because something else you should know is that Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones and Kevin Garnett are not the only former NBA players who were marketed as whales by the defendants indicted by the federal government. According to multiple sources with direct knowledge of that April 2019 game in Vegas that we've been discussing here, the same one where Billups was allegedly.

profiting off of that extremely suspicious hand and that rigged shuffling machine, another face card in attendance, was current Los Angeles Clippers head coach, Thai Liu, who was, at the time, an assistant coach for the Clippers. Now, sources say that Lou did not play at the same table as Chauncey Billups, the man Lou recently called his best friend, and also the man whom Lou would hire as a Clippers assistant himself, the very next year, 2020, once Lou got his current head job. But an open secret around the NBA is that Tylo, who lives in Vegas in the offseason, also loves poker and is often seen at what is considered the nexus of the NBA poker world.

The ARIA High Limit Bar. Often, alongside another retired NBA player whom Lou had separately hired to his coaching staff in Cleveland and who has called Lou his best friend. Damon Jones, which makes for, you know, just one hell of a best friend triangle. In fact, in June of 2024, both Ty Lou and Damon Jones sat next to each other on the rail, the poker equivalent of courtside at a playoff game, to where, watch another friend of theirs compete at the World Series of Poker, as seen on the broadcast of that event.

Tim Luski, come on, man. West Side rolling, die time. What's your number? What's your number? T-Lew! Ever failed. Which the number, T-Lewski! Last week, we here at Pablattori finds out asked Clippers PR about Loo's attendance at that

allegedly rigged game in Vegas in April 2019, the same one with Billups that was mentioned in the federal indictment. And the Clippers did not respond. But going back to that same game in question, eventually, my anonymous poker playing source did hear that something was up. A year later, you know, my friend came back to me and said, for sure, like, that game was cheated. And then other people had heard about that in Vegas.

So there was word around the streets that, you know, this game was allegedly cheated, especially because there's some shady people involved running the operation. So, I mean, in a nutshell, that is just a taste of the horrifically named Operation Royal Flush, which is further confirmed by a review of my source's contemporaneous text messages from the time related to that poker hand. But the other federal investigation, Operation Nothing But Bet, which is arguably even worse as a name, it does something more, right? Because it names current Heat Guard Terry Rozier

and, once again, Damon Jones, as two of these six listed defendants, all of whom the federal government has charged with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy for their alleged roles in a scheme to use inside information provided by NBA players and coaches about players ranging from Terry Rozier to apparently

LeBron James and Damien Lillard. The latter info coming, allegedly, from a conspicuously thinly veiled co-conspirator. I mean. Co-conspirator number eight, an individual whose identity is known to the grand jury, was a resident of Oregon. Co-conspirator number eight was an NBA player from approximately 1997 through 2014 and an NBA coach since at least 2021. Ladies and gentlemen, one guy in league history fits that description. It's Chauncey Billups.

It's kind of like they said, and his name is C. Billups, no wait. Choncy B. The noted Hall of Famer, and I appreciate you, by the way, cleaning up the DOJ's typo. They forgot to put the of... Of. In Resident of Oregon. Just as a matter of, you know, just pointing out some stuff here as a journalist. And what's weird about some of the framing here, about how a bunch of mainstream media,

and even some of the smartest people in the NBA, how they've been framing the whole cluster is that they have been saying this is two non-intersecting parallel operations. They are two separate operations. But to me, I mean, what we learned three months ago was that the rig poker scandal does have some touch points at the roots of it with the NBA betting scandal. And the reason I say that is because the character we wound up reporting on three months ago, the focus of our July episode was who and why. Back in July, as we're going through the Malik Beasley case,

we discovered a character named Moose NBA, various aliases, obviously changing his Twitter handles from year to year hours until he got banned and blocked one way or another. And Moose, as it turns out, was the cousin of one Amar Aowaday, who you might recognize that name. from the indictments that came down last week. So just to briefly recap here, in January 2025, this was four months before the news of the federal government,

still ongoing investigation into Pistons Guard, Malik Beasley. Now, former Pistons Guard, Malik Beasley, was broken. Ex-user, Freemus underscore NBA, predicted that Malik Beasley would be the next NBA gambling scandal. Quote, first was Jonte, then was Rozier, next you'll hear about M, star, star, star, star, B, star, star, star, star, otherwise known, again, in that very unsubtle way as Malik Beasley.

Might as well work for the DOJ. I know. We're unmasking everybody today. But the thing we found out in that rabbit hole of an episode is that, yes, Moose's close friend and fellow diehard Knicks fan and cousin is a person of interest, yes, by the name of Amar Awa Day, even though, by the way, Moose previously denied that very fact to our friend Tom Haberstro in a July interview that went from extremely talkative to suddenly extremely strained.

Are you friends with or do you know Amar Awade? No. No? Okay, because I saw that you're Facebook friends with Amar. And so I figured maybe that was somehow you were associated with him. He's a very boastful person, Moose NBA was. And as soon as you heard it, as soon as that name came out, the loquacious moose all of a sudden turns mute.

Because what he knows and what you now know as a listener to this show is that Amar Aowaday is not merely related to moose. Amar Aowaday was also a charter member of the infamous Jante Porter group chat, which is the wellspring. I'm here to argue from which this entire saga actually originated. And for those who don't remember, this is the group chat where Jante Porter, who at the time was an obscure Raptor's backup facing down gambling debt too, among others, Amar Aowaday, told the chat he was going to pull himself out of specific NBA games early, therefore allowing the chat to win money by placing these prop bets on Porter's unders, meaning his underperformance relative to the lines set by gambling operators in Las Vegas that people were gambling on. And in fact, in a photo, that we're going to show on screen here, you can see Amar Awa Day in the red hoodie on the left.

This is the photo from the exact day that the group chat was allegedly working together to place bets on Jonte Porter. This was taken to mean at the illustrious resorts casino in Atlantic City. And what you should also know is that before Jonti Porter got arrested last year, according to a court document from June, he had texted this same group chat, these same guys, about, quote, deleting all the stuff from their cell phones and warning them also that they, quote,

might just get hit with a RICO, end quote. Criminal mastermind, Mr. Porter, is not. Those texts to be, were sent in April of 2024. Chonte Porter got banned for life from the NBA later that same month. And less than a week after that, we then found video of Amar Awa Day, this time not wearing the red hoodie in that photo, but wearing something else,

sitting where? Baseline at a Knicks Sixers game in Madison Square Garden, I believe in close proximity to Carmelo Anthony. Yes, he did dab up Mello, but Amar Awe day, for the record, did plead not guilty to wire fraud conspiracy back in December, and he did have his next court date rescheduled after delay and delay and delay,

until next week. But last week, I mean, catching everybody up here, we very curiously did not find Amar Aowaday's name in the indictment for Operation Nothing but Bet, the NBA gambling side. But we did find him all over Operation Royal flush, the whole rig poker game investigation we talked about. So could you please read from that indictment?

The defendant, Amar Aweidae, also known as Flapper Poker and Flappy was a resident of Brooklyn, New York, an associate of the Gambino Crime Family, and a member of the cheating teams. Awaday was an organizer of the Washington Place game and, with others, organized rig games at the Washington Place game,

among other places. Now, I don't know what it's like for you to discover that, oh, we've been talking about the Gambino Crime Family on the podcast, but that was the thing that I sat up straight a bit when I read, because in our previous episode, you may recall, that I talked to someone who personally played in multiple private poker games in Manhattan with Amar Flapper Poker Al-Day. And this person said to me that Flappy was texting people to come to his poker games even after Amar Awaday was very publicly identified as involved in the whole Jante Porter NBA betting scandal. And yet, the figure we're here to focus on in this episode is not flappy or chauncey. It is a different person associated with that original Jante Porter group chat. I mean, this is a person that we have now spent the last three months investigating because I suspect that this person may have served as, in fact,

the single most important human connection between Operation Royal Flush over here and Operation Northern. nothing but bet over there. Right now I feel like I'm Russell Crow an American gangster, and we're about to point to the photo of the man really on top of this whole scheme, the guy who brings it all together, all the strings on our Pepe Sylvia board, are pointing to hoomst.

It is pointing to something we discovered in the days leading up to that press conference that blindsided everybody else, that press conference with the FBI director and the NYPD chief and the prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York, And as you take off your stupid ass glasses, I do think it bears pointing out

that what I want to get to might explain so much of what's happened since. Now? After the break. Damn. I mean, there are a lot of characters to choose from in this story. I do just need to explain to you how difficult it was for me to focus on a person of interest here

who did not send what is my favorite tweet of all time. Can you please read Exhibit A? Terry Rosier at T underscore Rose 3, May 1st, 2011. Osama should have hooped instead of trying to kill people because he tall as hell. We updated May 1st, 20203, don't know where I was at or what I was doing when I tweeted this, but happy anniversary. Dot, dot, dot. I was dead-ass curious, laughing, crying emoji. I mean, it's a good take.

It's a strong take. It's a strong thing. Osama Bill out with 6-7, folks. Absolutely. The Bin Laden NBA sliding doors timeline, we're in a very different universe. But as strong takes go, I do think it's also worth pointing out

that Terry Rozier on our YouTube channel, you can see this. This is from March of this year. He has some strong takes of his own. Here he is crossing over, Nick Batum of the Los Angeles Clippers in Miami. I mean, he's got it to me. He's still got it.

Yeah. You got a first round pick in that trade. that the heat made for Terry Roger from the Hornets. They sure did. Sorry, there's no return policy on that. Yeah, there was a no backsease policy in the NBA, despite the fact that there are multiple federal indictments looming. But we leave that aside for now

because that controversy is not what we're focusing on here. Our focus, Amin, is on the only person in this story with an even richer social media history than scary Terry. Because this person did get named as a defendant in both Operation Royal Flush and Operator. nothing but bet. And this person at age 40 is the type of guy who recently posted this on his Instagram account at Best That Ever did it, which finally went private, regrettably, in the last week.

It's a post of a meme and it says, yes, I support LGBT, where the L is for Latinas. G is for gambling. B is for beer. And does that say tax evasion? That's right. The T is for tax evasion is an illustration of a guy with a sack of money with a dollar sign on it. This amin is the account of one Sugar Shane Hennon, who is an LGBT advocate of a different kind. And I've been following this account for the last three months through thousands of pages of court documents and hundreds of social media posts.

And it has been a real mind-fuck for me. And maybe it is just me. But in case you're not watching on YouTube, you should know that Shane Hennon also looks like this. which is to say that he kind of looks like if Clippers' president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank once got arrested in 2006 on a felony charge of, quote, facsimile weapon of mass destruction,

and also a misdemeanor charge of criminal conspiracy related to using gambling devices in dice games. He looks like a cleaned-up Carl Pilkington. He never watched an idiot abroad with Ricky Jervage and Stephen Merchant. He looks like Carl Pilkington if he really took care of himself.

And if Carl Pilkington, in this hypothetical comparison, of course, then pled guilty to the aforementioned charges and got six months probation only to get arrested for stabbing someone in the neck at a pool hall in Pittsburgh in 2009, eventually pleading guilty to aggravated assault. Is that wrong?

We're not supposed to do that? Well, I had to tell you, I got to plead ignorance on this. Well, I should point out that less than two weeks after the stabbing, Shane Henin then got arrested for selling cocaine in a casino parking lot, ultimately serving two and a half, years in prison. Not a good month for Shane Henan, huh? All these things happening.

But after all of that, what Sugar Shane Henan decided to do was start anew. He moved from Pennsylvania to Las Vegas. And over the next decade, I mean, he did what any enterprising young man with that kind of record might do. Works hard at a straight job. Exactly right. He became an online sports betting expert. Everybody keeps...

saying, oh my gosh, Shane, you won a million dollars on the weekend. You won a million dollars on Sunday. Like, holy fuck. So, yeah, it looks like I cashed out a million dollars. But in all reality, I'm only winning like 50, 60K for the week. So that's why I'm saying. If anybody thinks that sports betting, you've got to just understand there's going to be highs and there's going to be lows.

Pablo, you can go straight to L.A. and get me the best casting director that Hollywood has to offer. and say, I'm casting for the role of a guy who just got out of jail and is now an online sports betting expert. Just going off of voice acting, though. I don't need to see what he looks like. I need a voice. That's the voice that they provide.

Who also kind of sounded like Joe Pesci and Goodfellas. I'm funny how? I mean funny like I'm a clown. I amuse you. I make you laugh. I'm here to fucking amuse you. What do you mean funny? Funny how am I funny?

Could we make that person? And God said, I got you. Oh, my beer. That clip, by the way, is kind of admittedly almost eerily introspective, right? He's sort of talking about the highs and the lows, a moment of just sort of like lucidity. I mean, an account that otherwise is, for the record, $90,000 on UCLA plus five and a half. Hawking picks, posting lots of betting slips,

uploading various videos of himself with private jets and stacks of cash at yet more poker tables. somebody like me is I'm always looking for an edge to bet when we look at like weaknesses in the lines where we think the casinos are wrong for instance i mean here are two videos that Shane Hennon posted just last month the first one i see Shane Hennon's got sunglasses on he's got a white button-up shirt and i believe he's chugging a bottle of casamigos repisano well spotted ame yeah thank you your expertise on this subject has been well established Meanwhile, the second video right after that one that I want to show you is this. Now it's Shane Henan sitting down in that same white button-up shirt with a champagne flute in his mouth, but he's not holding it up, Pablo. No. What's holding up the other end of the glass is an attractive young blonde woman in a swimsuit that is patterned with what appears to be $100 bills.

Yes, all of that checks out. The cameraman is lingering in ways that can only be described as objectively creepy. But your scouting report is correct. And also, there's another picture I want to show you, which Shane posted in 2018. This one after he had done 30 more days in custody. This was the end result of getting pulled over

for a DUI in the suburbs of somewhere in Missouri. And apparently he had about 14 grand worth of gambling winnings in his car. It is a stack of money, but it's not dollars, Pablo. No, these are euros. And it's like a 500-euro note, but it's like a stack of a bunch of them. So I don't know, call it maybe about 40 or 50, 500-year-o notes spread out on what looks like a seat. The 500-year-o note, I do want to take a beat to observe this here. It no longer exists.

So this photo was posted in 2018, but most European Union banks had started phasing out this form of currency. Around 2016, 2018, I mean, when Shane posted. to this exact photo, because it turns out that in the absence of the American $500 bill, the 500-year-o note had become the underworld's currency of choice for money laundering and terrorism financing. And in fact, according to The Guardian, the 500-Euro even had a nickname. A nickname that I dare say Terry Rozier might approve of. What do you think that nickname is? Oh man Osama's?

The bin Laden is what we were looking for Close I went first name I went too comfortable I went too familiar I'm sorry Because quote While many people know what it looks like Few have ever seen one

End quote The bin Laden You know what Whoever came up with that That's who the FBI needs to hire To come over the operation names because that's great. That's branding. That's just poetic.

So yeah, few people had ever seen one unless, of course, you followed Sugar Shane Hennon's Instagram account, which also showed you things like Shane Hennon's literal ass. Let me read the caption. Please. My ass white a.F.

Laughing emoji. If you're not living life, what's you doing? What are we doing as we watch Yes, the time lapse of Shane Henan's ass swim across, truly like beautifully translucent water in the Maldives. The reason I'm showing you all of this in vivid detail, I mean, is because Shane Henan is not just the guy who once messed around with facsimile explosives and dice cheating devices. He is also, according to the allegations in Operation Royal Flush, the guy who supplied the type of cheating technology used by Chauncey Billups, allegedly, and his fellow co-conspirators in private poker games. including the elaborate rigged shuffling machine that we mentioned before. And these photos you can now see because of that indictment.

Yes, it is the Deckmate 2 shuffler. It's been taken apart on a table from the I-Cloud account of one of the defendants. And in the next photo, you can sort of see, a computer program thing. Image of the computer program showing information transmitted by the rigged shuffling machine from defendant, ICloud account. count. I'm a bigger fan of the deckmate one. I like the original incarnation. The sequel is never as good. But now, I mean, given this backdrop, if we turn to the other indictment, Operation Nothing But Bet,

what we find is that Shane Hennon does appear again. But he's almost like buried in this indictment. He doesn't lead any of the sections that we can read. And yet, in item number 38, what we learn is that in March 23, Shane Hennon made use of a tip, a tip allegedly originating from Terry Rozier himself, that Rozier was going to be taken himself out of a Hornet scheme in New Orleans. I mean, and the reason that Shane Henan was told this, according to the government, was clear. So that Henan, both himself and through a network of straw betters, could place bets on the defendant Terry Rozier's unders.

And later on, it says, Henan marshalled a network. of associates to place bets on Rozier's unders at Henan's direction. And if you keep reading this indictment, what you learn is that Shane Henan marshalling this network of betters to make multiple bets is also the thing that happened with the information that allegedly originated from Chauncey Billups about his tanking blazers. And also with the intel about John Tate Porter, whose text message about his one-man Raptor's tank job was forwarded straight to Shane Hennon, allegedly. But in this case, the case with Terry Rozier,

Rozier took himself out of his March 2023 game after less than 10 minutes as scheduled. And you can see, in fact, this exact moment of mean, that he started grabbing at his injured, quote-unquote, right foot, only for, less than a week later, allegedly, two other named defendants to come visit Shane Hennon to Philadelphia to pick up their winnings, the winnings they got betting,

Terry Rozier unders in that game. And some of those winnings, according to this indictment, got delivered back to Terry Rozier himself. The proceeds were later delivered to his home where the group counted their cash. As the NBA season tips off, his career is already benched,

not for injury, but for integrity. You can just tell us what the charges are. They can just say it, this is the indictment, this is what happened. It's kind of like a lot of people finally discover what it's like to be a headline writer for like the back page of the New York Post.

And they're like, we're getting these takes off to. Sir, I read the New York Post every single day I was in high school. The people come up with those back page headlines are like Keats compared to these DOJ hacks. Right. The New York Post for the record went with Hoop Fellas, which I think is a lot better.

Yeah. You know, but look, headless body and topless bar, the gold standard. all of us are still just, you know, we're pretending. We're playing for a second. That's right. But as for the plight of Terry Rozier and him leaving that game in March of 2023

with a supposed right foot problem that you saw before, the NBA says that it was alerted to irregular betting activity by the sportsbook in question right away. A source at the league office tells PTFO, quote, once we heard about it, the wheels started turning. We were deliberate. it." But according to multiple sources familiar with the situation,

the NBA waited until late spring to conduct its own internal investigation of Rozier, at least in earnest. This was an investigation that would be led by the league's external law firm of choice, Wachtel Lipton. And Rozier, we are told, sat for a Zoom interview,

and he handed over his cell phone to the league, which was, in turn, handed over to League investigators looking for specific search terms, except NBA investigators, did not find a smoking gun violation on Rozier's phone, according to these sources, and the League ultimately chose to not inform

the Miami Heat and other teams about the unusual betting activity stuff before Scary Terry got traded to South Beach. And instead, they chose to defer to the Feds, who, According to Rozier's attorney, Jim Trustee, quote, appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing.

Terry was cleared by the NBA, and these prosecutors revived that non-case, end quote. But on Wednesday, our source in the NBA League office disputed that to Pablo Torre finds out. Quote, Terry's investigation was never closed, so he was not cleared of anything. Us not being able to find something is not the same as cleared. It is true we did not find a violation of our rules, but we did not close our investigation. End quote. And the last thing you should know here is that on Tuesday, Jim Trustee,

Rosier's attorney went on Fox News to say, quote, I'm not here to defend anybody else in the indictment. There's a bunch of people. Terry doesn't even know if you could pick them out of a lineup. End quote. But what has not yet been reported about the whole cash collection thing that happened in Philly, I mean, is that Shane Hennon, crude a form, perhaps, was not exactly laying low here. You may recall, in fact, how we found Shane's friend, Amar Awaday, aka Flappy, watching the Knicks Courtside days after Jontay Porter got banned for life. Well, on at best that ever did it, you can see exactly where Shane Hennon happened to be on March 29, 2023, when those guys allegedly traveled to Philly to collect.

Oh, wow. Here we go. We're sitting, it looks like courtside at a game. with the caption, when my partner come to Philly and win the drip cam make me got to step my game up, rolling laughing emoji, rolling laughing emoji, at Vezino underscore locks, ice cold emoji, ice cold emoji, ice cold emoji, ice cold emoji.

That's right. This is a photo, courtside at a six years game on March 29, 2023 of Shane Hannan sitting courtside next to his self-described partner and friend and fellow defendant in the NBA betting indictment named Marvis Fairley, who is going to shock you, I mean, is also a sports betting expert.

He sells picks under his Instagram handle, yes, at Vezino underscore Lox. It's Vezino Lox, man, on three. Vesino Lox on three, baby. Come on. One, two, three. Zezino Lox. He has, in fact, pled not guilty.

wants to be very clear about this. Not guilty to this whole thing. But back in the timeline of this specific federal indictment from the United States government. We go from the Terry Rozier game on March 23rd, 2023, to the Blazers game the very next day, March 24th, 20203, which is when Shane Henan and company

allegedly profited off of inside information, allegedly supplied by head coach Chauncey Billups, about Dame Lillard being out of the game. And then we go to the Jante Porter scheme. which started with bets in January 2024 and was forever memorialized at that food court in Atlantic City in March of 2024.

But in January of 2025, okay, this is this year, something important happened, I mean, in the jet setting, sports betting, tequila chugging life of sugar Shane Henan. Because at the best that ever did it, was finally arrested by the feds

at the Las Vegas airport. This was part of the case that originated with his friend, Amar Awade, and the whole Jante Porter group chat. And I'd like you to please read from the following court document that we obtained. On January 8, 2025, the defendant purchased a one-way ticket to Columbia, connecting through Panama, which was scheduled to depart from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, HRI, on January 12, 2025. The defendant was arrested in connection with the complaint.

at HRI as he attempted to board the above-reference flight to Panama. During a search incident to the defendant's arrest, law enforcement agents found on the defendant multiple cell phones and just under $10,000 in cash. Upon arrest, the defendant also stated to law enforcement agents, unprompted, that he was traveling to Columbia to purportedly seek dental treatment. I am told reliably that Columbia might be considered

the best that ever did it at dentistry. they are the Turkey of the Western Hemisphere. What Turkey is to hairlines, Colombia reportedly is to your grill. They do teeth too in Turkey now. But there is another passage from the same letter, the same court document, that is filed by the acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, that I want to highlight here as well, I mean, if you can read this part. The defendant's motive to flee is obvious.

The proof of his guilt is overwhelming, and, particularly given his substantial criminal history, he may ultimately face up to two decades in prison upon conviction. Among other evidence, witnesses, phone records, financial records, and betting records confirmed that the defendant orchestrated and participated in numerous fraudulent wager schemes, which, among other things, resulted in potentially millions of dollars worth of illicit profits and money laundering transactions. Shane Hennon, in other words, according to federal government, is the orchestrator of this whole gambling scandal.

He was supposed to be charged with wire fraud and money laundering. And this is Russell Crowe putting up the picture. There's our guy. This is our Frank Lucas. Allegedly. So the question that we've been circling here for months now is this. After Shane Hennon got arrested at the laws of Vegas airport, having orchestrated what the government itself has called, potentially, the largest

sports betting scandal in U.S. history. How in the fuck did Shane Hennon get released that same day? Good lawyer? So, I mean, this is the part of the story where we here at Pablo Torre finds out had to make a physical trip to the Eastern District courthouse in downtown Brooklyn the day after that giant press conference with FBI director Cash Patel and the NYP. commissioner and the whole array of federal prosecutors. Because that courthouse turns out to be the only place that a journalist can access what turns out to be the final entry on Shane Hennon's original court docket. And a docket, for those not familiar, is just the official log of a criminal case from start to finish, gavel to gavel, as it were. And this entry here refers to a transcript of

the proceedings in January 2025, the one we mentioned before, which have not yet been made public. So when you walk into the courthouse, I mean, you got to hand over your phone, you got to hand over all your electronic devices. It's like you're walking into a Dave Chappelle show. Can't record any of it. And what you have to do is log on to a special computer. And then you're allowed to take notes just by hand. And what we found at this courthouse is the transcript of Shane Hennon's 14-minute bail hearing

on January 31st, 2025 in New York City. and what you find in that transcript is that Shane Hennon and the U.S. government have started plea negotiations, and that at one point, the judge says the following about Shane. It appears he understands the application and it's in his interest, the public's interest, and the interest of justice to try to resolve this case with the plea rather than moving ahead with the indictment immediately. So we'll enter that on the docket and quote. And what the rest of that docket says is that in the case of the United States of America v. Shane Hennon, Shane Hennon has been released on a $200,000 bond with some caveats that make clear that Shane should not do the following.

Not leave the following areas except for travel to and from court, and the checkbox selected is continental United States, and abstain from all alcohol use, shall use his true name only and not. use any false identifiers that is checked as well. It is also worth noting here in that the otherwise redacted bail hearing in which the judge said, quote, it's been a long time since she'd seen a request to begin plea negotiations so quickly. That same judge then jumped in to ask, quote, should there be any limitations on his involvement with betting or other similar financial activity? To which the assistant U.S. attorney responded that they apparently hadn't really discussed

that, which, you know, seemed odd to me as a podcaster investigating a sports betting scandal, at least. But you know what? Let's just go with it. Let's actually just take that discrepancy at face value. Because it is also worth reminding everybody that those videos of Shane Henan chugging the Casamigos that you identified and having that glass of alcohol fed to him by that woman covered in, you know, Ben Franklin's face, those were posted by Shane Henan on September 25th, 2025. Meaning, this was while he and the government continued to negotiate his ongoing plea agreement, according to court records. Pablo, those videos were taken in the continental United States. One out of three ain't bad.

That's Hall of Fame in baseball. That's right. It seems like he was correctly identifying himself as the person not abstaining from all alcohol use on a sheer batting average level. Not bad. Now, what I should say here is that we reached out to Shane Hennon and his attorney asking for interviews and sending a detailed list of questions, like whether Shane Hennon should really be considered as he was by the U.S. Attorney's Office, the quote-unquote orchestrating force, basically the puppet master of this whole scandal. Or like, why that whole thing about how maybe Shane should not be gambling while out on bail and how the assistant. and U.S. Attorney was like, we hadn't really discussed it, but okay.

I wanted to know why that stuff didn't end up in Shane's official bond agreement in the end, in that whole right-in section alongside the not-drinking part and the whole, you must identify yourself under your real name part, as he, you know, roamed about the continental United States this year. And on Wednesday, we finally received this statement from Shane, Hennon's lawyer. Quote, this case is still in its early stages, and we have not yet had the opportunity to review all of the discovery. Mr. Hennon will be entering a plea of not guilty to all charges in the indictment and maintains his innocence. And quote, the lawyer then added that he would

address the court this Thursday when Hennon is scheduled to be arraigned in New York City, around when This episode publishes, which raises another key question as we review evidence, hiding in plain sight, while searching for Sugar Shane. What else is Shane up to, by the way? So I'm glad you asked this question because in March of this year, 2025, there's less than two months after that judge let him out on bail, as his plea negotiations continued and continued. at best that ever did it, posted an Instagram carousel. I mean, with the caption, Life Lately.

Oh, this is Instagram royalty right here, that captioned. Life Lately, look at that. He's outside. So that, I believe that's outside the garden, outside of Madison Square Garden. This looks a lot like Brickle down in Miami. You're like a geogessor for degenerate hangouts.

Dude, I'll tell it like, this is my life. Oh, yep, there it is. He's at a heat game. He's staring at someone, and let's now, we're at the Satai. It looks like it's a resort. Miami Beach. Yeah. Dricking it out of a coconut.

I want to go back to that heat game, the one where he was sitting baseline. The heat are playing the clippers. And if we play this thing through, you can maybe tell that he's looking out at a heat guard that he posted the picture of. with the number two, I mean. Guys, we're not doing this, are we? I mean, who wears number two for the Miami Heat? I believe it's a man they affectionately call Scary Terry.

You may remember Amin way at the beginning of his episode when I showed you that photo of Terry Rozier with a strong take crossing over the Los Angeles Clippers and Nicholas Batum. This photo was from March of this year, just to reiterate that. March 12th. How do y'all keep getting me on these, man? March 12th, 2025, Clippers Heed, a game that has not been mentioned in any of the indictments.

Enhance. Oh, my gosh. Enhance. You could not have set it up better as a picture, as a framing. Right off of Terry Rozier, as he's crossing the ever-living f***ing out of Nicholas Batum. In the crack in between his upper thigh and his upper thigh and his chest, you know, that angle that's being created by

his body in the crossover, right in between that is a blurry image in the background of a bald white man in a black shirt. It looks a lot like Shane Henan. It looks a lot like a guy who's kind of like a mix between

Lawrence Frank and Carl Pilkington who kind of sounds like Joe Pesci that has the skull shape that is distinct. similar to the guy who owns the Instagram account that posted a photo from exactly that point of view. And so this brings us to the question that we have been circling for months now. And that question is also a question that isn't just raised because of the behavior that Shane Henan himself was documenting on Instagram.

It has been raised because of that story that I referenced before. If you will recall that time that Shane Henan got convicted for selling cocaine in that casino parking lot that I told you, about in 2009, which you may also recall happened less than two weeks after. He, you know, stabbed that guy in the neck at a pool hall in Pittsburgh in 2009. That was a real tough month for him. Yes. That rough month, turns out, lasted for a while longer and did not resolve itself until 2011, when then 26-year-old Shane Hennon took the stand in what I can only describe as a mad lib of a mob trial to testify. We are talking.

About three ounces of cocaine, a sprawling government conspiracy case against a bunch of alleged associates of the Bosnian ringleader of the branch of a Mexican drug cartel operating in America, and also, and I did not know this existed, some sort of cocaine pressing machine. All of this taking place in Shane's hometown of Pittsburgh. The deckmaster three? The equivalent. I can only presume of cocaine. cocaine pressing. Anyway, this is where, I mean, I'm going to invite you to do that thing where we do a table read together in which you are going to have to play Shane Hennon reliving some of his personal legal history, and I'm going to play the role of the government lawyer. Okay. Now, Mr. Hennon, you've been convicted in federal court for cocaine dealing, is that correct?

Yes, I have. Did you plead guilty or were you convicted at a trial? I pled guilty. And did you have a plea agreement? Yes, I did. Did the plea agreement have any provisions concerning cooperation? It would just help me to do with my sentence. And when you say it would help you reduce your sentence, what are we talking about? My cooperation.

What does cooperation mean? Giving information that I know about. Now, after that, I'm now the Bosnian ringleader's associate's lawyer. When you got arrested, did you agree to cooperate quickly? Yes. All right. How quickly? That day. As soon as you got popped, you said, I'm going to cooperate.

Yeah. All right. Now, you indicated that you, on many occasions, went to other places to gamble. Uh-huh. Did you know that it was a condition of your bond that you were not allowed to leave the state without permission? That I was. You disregarded that. Yes.

All right. Now, isn't it, in fact, true that the federal government actually paid for you to go to Detroit? That they did. All right? And that was so that you could try to set someone up there. That's correct. You didn't want to go to jail for a 10-year mandatory. That's correct.

And you said, I'll cooperate. That's correct. Real quickly. Yep. All right, because you had to look out for yourself. That's correct. No one else is going to look out for you, right? That's correct.

In fact, no one's really looked out for you your entire adult life. That's correct. And that's why you're out here hustling and cheating people. That's correct. In scene. Look, the whole thing about who's looking out for who here, I think it's clear that in this deal that Shane Hennon could not have been more granularly specific about admitting to. in court documents, Shane Hennon looked out for himself.

And what you should know is that after that 2011 testimony in that mob trial, Shane Hennon finally pled guilty to the whole cocaine charge, but he was still under supervised release for the next four years until 2015. So he was only allowed to travel in Florida

for his alleged new job as a sales rep for a seafood wholesaler, where according to a 2015 court document, Shane Hennon spent those four years going to Vegas to gamble. That's correct. This even when the government denied his request. And according to the court document, I mean, Shane Hennon even showed his parole officers his winnings from a trip he made in 2014.

Although, again, his parole officers might have also just checked his Instagram account to see the chips that say, Bellagio on them, alongside one of the. those slips that you get when you win money at a casino. In case you're wondering, where is he? It's got the money, it's got the chips with the name of the establishment on it. You get what you incent. If the incentive structure is provided, reinforce the behavior that you're getting, guess what? You are going to continue to get that behavior.

And so, if you're Shane Hennon, it might seem ballsy, to us. But as we're presenting more and more of this, this kind of evidence of the pattern of behavior, it's because it was reinforced. The government said it was cool, basically implicitly allowed it to be cool for him to operate in that manner.

And so he continued to operate in that manner. And in Shane Hannan's case, by the way, in his personal case, this stuff kept on happening. According to one DEA report, he traveled cross-country unauthorized with over $10,000, in cash. In 2016, apparently, Shane tried two separate times, in one instance, acting as his own

lawyer, which would have been a hell of a table read for us to do, to end his official supervised release, which the government denied, citing Shane's, quote, noncompliance. Of course, you will not be surprised to learn that he posted yet another video that same day of himself boarding a private jet. And all of this seemed to come crashing down. when Shane did get pulled over for that DUI referenced many moons ago. This was in Missouri, outside of St. Louis in 2017. He had more than the $14,000 I mentioned in cash. And Shane claimed that that money was gambling winnings.

His probation officer then had to flag it. But three months after that DUI arrest, he could not help himself. Because he posted this on Instagram. Yes. Yeah, it's him and Little John. Oh, God. And the caption says,

Lil John at Jewel Nightclub, which I believe is at Aria, at Alejandro underscore T.J. 2LV, had it lit last night. Notably, Lil John, the, you know, worldwide recording artist, has a shirt that I think says, fuck you Snapchat on it.

Anyway, all of this brings us back to 2025 now. This is when Shane Hennon got arrested. You will recall in January at the Vegas airport, headed on a one-way flight to Columbia for dental work that I can only imagine would have made Lil John proud as little John is flashing his own grill in that photo. And what happens, of course, is that Shane Hennon winds up frequenting after that arrest, the ARIA high-limit bar once again.

I can't wait to go back to Summer League. hang out at that bar. Yeah, apparently, like, the Aria High Limit Bar is the Mos Eisley Cantina of the professional basketball world. A den of scum and villainy. As my poker source that you heard from before

can personally attest. This summer, in Vegas, Shane Henan is there every day at the ARIA sitting at the ARIA bar, as well as some other casinos, just sitting there hanging out,

like drinking. And the ARIA High Limit Bar, if you don't know, is like the place to be when there's a lot going on in Vegas. That's like the social place or everyone on the networks. And, and shame was there every day. And so a bunch of us are talking like, why would he be here? It makes no sense. Like, why is he just hanging out during the World Series of Poker?

And even after that, like, every weekend in Vegas at the Oriole Bar, like, this guy just got indicted for like a huge crime. Shouldn't he be in jail? And so it started asking around to different people. And multiple people put two and two together. that Shane is a government informant. He's not Joe Pessie. He's Henry Hill.

He's Ray Leota's character in Goodfellas. He's a rat. Allegedly. But it is the thing that if you talk to enough people around the poker world, this is their consensus. I have dozen people have relayed this thought to me. And yes, it is recalling that line in Goodfellas, if they are correct, when Ray Leota

Henry Hill talks about turning on his crew. He goes, the hardest thing for me... I was leaving the life. I still love the life. And we were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all just for the asking. As he told us himself in his Maldives swimming picture, if you're not living a life, what are you doing?

Bear white ass. And it should be clear, of course, that this theory around Shane Henan's cooperation with the federal government is for now, simply a theory. That's all we're saying. The big question of is the puppet master a rat is, of course, being said in the absence

of some official governmental confirmation. We're just asking questions. I mean, before I let you go here, we do have to get to the question of Shane Henan's docket. Because we have been tracking Shane's case for three months now. We've been tracking it as his lawyer and the government kept buying time, negotiating this plea agreement.

While, by the way, the lawyer for Amar O'clock, otherwise known as Moose's cousin, otherwise known as Flappy, was doing the same for him. And on Monday of last week, this is October 20th, 2025, days before the big Thursday presser that blew up the sports world,

we did start to hear rumors about Chauncey Billups being involved. We started making calls as a result about Terry Rozier, which is how we happened to break that news on Twitter before Shams Strannia and ESPN, Thursday morning. The games in the New York area were backed by the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese crime

families of LeCazzo. While the cases are separate, there are three overlapping defendants charged in both cases. Damon Jones, Eric Ernest, and Shane Hennon. And I just do need to clarify. I mean, that Damon Jones and Eric Ernest mentioned there by U.S. Attorney Joe Nisela have pleaded not guilty. to all charges. And I also want to clarify that I have been spending all the last week talking to people who have personally prosecuted federal cases, much like this one.

And there are basically two clubhouse leading theories that we need to reckon with at the end here. In the first theory, the poker underworld that we heard from is actually on to something. Shane Hennon, the one-time government informant who had been flown around the country by the feds at one point, has been cooperating once again with the feds this entire time as a future star witness, feeding the government valuable information, including pictures of the deckmate two shuffler from his iCloud account, in order to save his own ass when it comes to his plea agreement.

This is what would explain why, perhaps, he was seemingly moving about the country, sitting courtside watching Terry Rozier, crossover Nicholas Baton, and also hanging out invariably, apparently, at the ARIA high-limit area. moving around with de facto diplomatic immunity, allegedly. That's the first theory.

But now I want to give you the second theory, I mean, which I find even more poetic in its own right. Because in this second theory, according to my federal prosecutor sources, Shane Henan is not going to be a star witness for the government, actually. And that would explain why he was named as a defendant in both cases. because while Shane Hennon has been spending this entire year since he got arrested in January in Vegas at the airport, negotiating his plea agreement for months and months now,

feeding the government that valuable headline-making information along the way as he's admitted to doing in the past, Shane Hennon may have made a crucial mistake, which is that his behavior, while out on bail, chugging the casamigos, drinking from the glass of a woman who was holding it, with her mouth while wearing a $100 bill printed swimsuit, that behavior might have actually ruined his credibility

as an actual witness in a trial that the government might plausibly call to the stand, meaning that the government may well have gotten a lot of information from Shane Hennon, who has been historically eager to give that information. but precisely how much remains in question, as Shane Hennon might not have gotten the protection that he sought in exchange. This might be the worst case scenario for Shane Hennon,

is that you snitch on the record, you get everyone you were working with in trouble, and you get zero protection or immunity, you get charged yourself. Dare I say it, Pablo, he might have to watch out for stitches. Well, he's not. His very unprotected white ass might want to be a bit careful. That would be the implication of theory number two.

And as we wait further developments in this docket, there are questions, I mean. And some of the outstanding questions in this enormous NBA nightmare relate to Malik Beasley. Because of course, Malik Beasley, you should know. happened to join the Lakers roster on February 9th, 2023. The same day that Lakers assistant Damon Jones was allegedly texting inside information to, quote, get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight to an unidentified co-conspirator number nine,

who was described in the indictment only as a resident of Brooklyn. Malik Beasley, you may now recall, is also the player that the cousin of Amar Flappy Awade, a resident of Brooklyn, had been tweeting about months before the federal investigation

in De Beasley was ever mentioned in public. But months after Amar Flappy Awade had turned himself into the feds, joining the other charter members of that Jante Porter group chat, only to very, curiously not be named as a defendant in the government's NBA betting indictment when it got unsealed last week.

Awade, by the way, was fighting the government's opposition to his bail, heading into a hearing this Wednesday. And all of this is to say that multiple sources with direct knowledge tell Pablo Tore finds out that the federal government's investigation into Malik Beasley is still ongoing. two weeks into this NBA season, as Malik Beasley remains a frustrated free agent. Now, when asked about this, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office here in the Eastern District of New York told us, quote, no comment. But an official at the NBA League office tells us that Beasley is still also being investigated internally by the league's lawyers for betting activity, despite not finding any, quote, hard evidence of Beasley altering his performance or communicating with gamblers to tip his performances, end quote, when they got their hands on the phone of Malik Beasley, who had, according to sources, previously been investigated by the NBA for bets he'd made on other sports. But the next question I needed to broach here takes us to Washington, D.C. because members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce

and members of the Senate Committee on Commerce have written a pair of bipartisan letters demanding accountability from Commissioner Adam Silver. And what congressional sources tell us is that these members will not be satisfied until Adam Silver answers questions in a televised hearing under oath. As Congresswoman Yvette Clark, the Democrat from New York on the House Committee,

tells Pablo Torre finds out in a statement, quote, the recent federal indictments have called into question the integrity of the National Basketball Association. We will uncover the full scale of this scandal. If slash when the NBA fails to protect the integrity of the game, Congress will step in to fill that void. We look forward to hearing from Mr. Silver directly, end quote. Meanwhile, in another exclusive statement to PTFO,

the U.S. Democratic Senator from Hawaii, Ryan Schatz, who sits on the Senate's committee, tells us, quote, recent allegations about gambling in the NBA need to be investigated thoroughly. Basketball fans in the broader public deserve to know the extent of this scandal. End quote.

And that is kind of all we're trying to do on this show as well, you know? Ask the right questions of powerful people, which brings us to one more question that is provoked by a real-life crook who, amusingly, sounds like Joe Pesci. What kind of case that the Department of Justice actually have against these bold-faced

headline-making names who have become the thing that pops up on the back of the New York Post? Hoops, fellas. And speaking of, it's really hard for me to not think of the wise words, spoken by a man

with an almost remarkable lucidity about how sports betting, much like a federal investigation, really is a long game. Everybody keeps saying, oh my gosh, you won a million dollars on the weekend. You won a million dollars on Sunday. Like, holy fuck.

So, yeah, it looks like I cashed out a million dollars, but in all reality, I'm only winning, like, 50, 60K for the week. So that's why I'm saying. If anybody thinks that sports betting, you've got to just understand there's going to be highs and there's going to be lows. So this is a low, right?

That's correct. Oh, callback. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. A Metal Arc Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.