Two more suspects have been charged with encouraging disgraced former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter to influence NBA games — including a Pennsylvania man who made $1.1M off a slew of bets.
Mahmud Mollah, 24, from Philadelphia, was hit with conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges Thursday after he cashed in on $1.13 million in bets from the 2 rigged games that led to Porter receiving a lifetime ban from the NBA.
The gambler appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court for his arraignment Thursday alongside Recent York native Timothy McCormack, 36, who faces the identical charges, where they were released on $50,000 bond before Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak.
Prosecutors allege that McCormack and Mollah worked with Porter, 24, to rig the “under” on bets based on Porter’s performance in two NBA contests by getting a heads up that Porter was going to fluke an injury to ensure that their bets to hit.
The bets focused on parlays — a bet of two or more statistical categories — on Porter’s performance within the games, where the degenerate gamblers alleged focused on categories like points, rebounds or blocks, court papers charge.
The alleged crew members — together with self-described “poker shark” Long Phi Pham and one other unnamed co-conspirator — all met at an Atlantic City casino before the Raptors’ March twentieth game against the Sacramento Kings, by which Porter faked a stomach bug despite having his best performance of the season only a game prior.
Mollah allegedly deposited $66,900 in money right into a betting account before the sport, and eventually netted a whopping $1.13 million in a series of parlay bets — before an internet betting company suspended his account, stopping him from withdrawing most of his winnings.
In the identical rigged game, McCormack won $44,000 by wagering $8,000 by betting on the under for Porter’s rebounds, prosectors said.
McCormack also made $33,250 within the Jan. 26 game against the Los Angeles Clippers — the sport where Porter left early with a fake eye injury — on a $7,000 wager by betting the under of Porter’s three pointers, assists and steals, based on court papers.
The judge ordered McCormack to get treatment for a gambling addiction after his attorney, Jeffrey Chartier, voiced the priority.
Meanwhile, Pham was released Thursday when he posted $750,000 bail after prosecutors claimed that he was attempting to jet out of town when he tried to board a flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Australia on a one-way ticket.
One other suspect within the criticism stays at-large.
Attorneys for McCormack and Mollah declined to comment on how their clients knew Porter.
The NBA journeyman was banned from the league on April 4 following an investigation that found that Porter — the brother of Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr. — placed at the least 13 bets on NBA games using another person’s account, with bets ranging between $15 to $22,000.
In response to the criticism, Porter owed “significant gambling debts” to at the least one in all the alleged conspirators and was encouraged to clear his debts by doing a “special” — purposely rigging a game in favor of his debt collectors and their bets, who knew that he was underperforming on purpose.
Porter will not be identified within the criticism, but matches the outline of “Player 1” within the court documents.
