Jontay Porter, former Toronto Raptors forward who was given a lifetime ban by the NBA because of a sports betting scandalwas “lost” with a gambling addiction, his lawyer said on Friday.
Jeff Jensen, a government investigations attorney in St. Louis, also said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that Porter is cooperating with investigators.
“Jontay is a good young man with a strong faith that will get him through this. He was lost due to gambling addiction. He is undergoing treatment and has cooperated fully with authorities,” Jensen said. It was his first statement since a league investigation found that Porter disclosed confidential information to sports bettors and bet on games, including bets on the Raptors losing.
Also on Friday, a fourth man was arrested in the scandal, when Ammar Awawdeh, 32, turned himself in following the arrests of three co-defendants earlier this week.
A court complaint accuses Awawdeh of pressuring an NBA athlete, identified only as “Player 1,” to resolve gambling debts by leaving games early. The tactic, which the two called “special,” would guarantee a prize for anyone who bet on him underperforming in those games, according to the document.
Using an encrypted messaging app, Awawdeh wrote earlier this year that he was “forcing” the player to do this and told him, “Take a screenshot of this,” the complaint said.
Awawdeh, who helps run his family’s corner stores in New York, was arraigned and released on $100,000 bail to house arrest with ankle monitoring. His lawyer, Alan Gerson, declined to comment on the allegations.
Porter is not accused in the case or named in the complaint. But the details about Player 1 match those of an NBA investigation that resulted in his lifetime suspension in April. The league found he bet on NBA games he didn’t play in and withdrew from at least one for a bet to pay out more than $1 million to a bettor who had been tipped off.
Awawdeh and his co-defendants – Timothy McCormack, Mahmud Mollah and Long Phi Pham – used advance knowledge of Player 1’s plans so that they or their relatives could place profitable bets on his performance in the Jan. 26 and March 20 games, according to the complaint.
Porter only played briefly on those dates before leaving the court complaining of injury or illness.
A betting company ultimately stopped Mollah from collecting most of his more than $1 million in winnings from the March 20 game, according to the complaint.
The defendants, charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, entered no pleas. His attorneys declined to comment, except for McCormack’s attorney, Jeffrey Chartier, who said “no case is clear cut.”
___
Haigh reported from Hartford, Connecticut.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
