Former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter pleads guilty to wire fraud conspiracy
The 24-year-old is due to be sentenced in December after he claimed his role in the scheme, which cost him his NBA career, was an attempt to combat "large gambling debts"
Ex-Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter has pleaded guilty to one charge of wire fraud conspiracy as part of an illegal gambling scheme.
The former NBA forward-center admitted that he agreed to withdraw from games early, allowing co-conspirators that bet on his performance to gain an illegal advantage.
“I knew what I did was wrong and unlawful and I’m deeply sorry for my conduct,” Porter said, while appearing in court in Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday.
Porter went on to confess the reasoning behind his actions, adding he did it “to get out from under large gambling debts.”
Currently, the 24-year-old has been released on a $250,000 (£194,000) bond, but awaits sentencing that is set to take place on 18 December.
Though a wire fraud conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, Porter has already agreed not to appeal any sentence of under five years.
He will also face significant fines, expected to total more than $100,000 alongside further restitution, as per reports from ESPN.
ESPN also reported that prosecutors have estimated his sentence will range from just under three-and-a-half-years in prison to a little over four years.
Following an investigation by the league earlier this year, Porter was also deemed to have placed more than a dozen bets on NBA games, some of which included his own side, the Raptors, to lose.
He was handed a lifetime ban from the NBA in April.
After finding himself lumbered with large gambling debts, Porter was encouraged by the four other men charged in the case to clear the debts via intentionally withdrawing from a game early to ensure those who had bet on him to underperform were successful.
The ex-Raptors player claimed injury or illness to withdraw from games on 26 January and 20 March of this year. In both of those games, his points, rebounds, and assists all hit the under on his set lines.
The four other men involved in proceedings, Ammar Awawdeh, Timothy McCormack, Mahmud Mollah and Long Phi Pham have all also been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud but are yet to enter pleas.
The complaint revealed that the alleged conspirators agreed to share a quarter of any winnings from the match in March with Porter himself, but one operator became suspicious after seeing one bettor on course to win $1m from bets related to Porter’s performance.
Earlier on this year, Porter is believed to have sent an encrypted message to others involved earlier that stated: “If I don’t do a special with your terms. Then it’s up, and u [sic] hate me and if I don’t get u [sic] 8k by Friday you’re coming to Toronto to beat me up.”
The NBA soon conducted an investigation and Porter is believed to have sent another message to Awawdeh, McCormack, Mollah and Pham in response, expressing his fear that all involved could be hit with a RICO – an acronym for a federal racketeering charge under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
He was also concerned over whether all relevant information had been deleted from every phone involved.
Porter told the court that he has since undergone inpatient rehab in relation to gambling addiction and remains in therapy.
After being expelled from the NBA, he became the first player to have been removed for gambling-related reasons since 1954.