High school friend of Donaghy and Battista who served as the go-between in the betting scheme during the 2006-2007 NBA season. Jimmy "the Sheep" Battista & NBA Revelations In "Gaming The Game". NBA commissioner David Stern kept Donaghy from working the second round of the 2005 playoffs because of the sheer volume (Sterns words) of such reports. Oakes was Tim Donaghy's uncle. . ACCORDING TO SCALA, the truncated probe meant the Feds left several lines of inquiry hanging. In it, she writes of the paradox of being both "lonely for him" and "truly afraid of him." In any case, Ruggieri before long decided to shut the whole thing down. ", The gambler added, "He also told me they were betting millions and he was an idiot not to ask for more.". In 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy was arrested for betting on games he officiated. Gambler, bookmaker and sometime partner of Battista and the Animals betting office who took over the Donaghy scheme after Battista went to rehab but quickly ended the operation. Yeah, I did. 2 on a Nielsen list in the middle of September 2011, he knew something was up when his royalty checks were a pittance. In Martino's words, "Blowouts, he can't control." The informant didn't know any names, and the people with the ref in their pocket did not appear to be made members of the Gambino crime family. Then, at some point in 2003, Donaghy and Concannon crossed the Rubicon. They were among his biggest brokerage clients and most trusted outs. but my gambling instincts were taking over, and I was perversely excited.. Another man who profited off Donaghy was a well-known New York and South Florida bookie and whale who sometimes went by the nickname Popeye on account of his oversize forearms. Our experts predict every series, 2023 NBA playoffs: Second-round series, Finals, MVP odds, 'He looks better than ever': Why the Orlando bubble was 'just the beginning' for Jamal Murray, Pregame chats, language arts and 'a lot of fines': Inside NBA player-ref dynamics, United States of sports betting: An updated map of where every state stands. One morning in early July 2007, Ronnie Nunn was asleep in a hotel room in Las Vegas when his cellphone buzzed him awake. And so nothing about any of this would end up in Pedowitz's final report. "You wanna get paid?" The new material that ESPN has assembled to support its own conclusion that Donaghy manipulated games is not strong and adds little to the existing record. According to Martino and Battista, after such wagering was complete, Battista, via Martino, would then inform Donaghy of the spread he needed to cover. If one assumes there should be no correlation between wagers and the calls made by a referee, the odds of that disparity* might seem unlikely. Donaghy said he couldn't do that, Vercher recalled in a deposition. Martino late at night on the phone with Donaghy, the pair having developed a nightly before-bed ritual: If Donaghy's pick was a winner, if the spread had been covered, Martino calling the ref and whispering "Good boy," and Donaghy echoing "Good boy" and then hanging up Donaghy calling two fouls 50 seconds apart against the 76ers' leading scorer, Andre Iguodala, in the third quarter against Boston, with the score's margin right on the spread. Dont forget that I got involved with this not realizing Donaghys story is [b.s. Donaghy then found another publisher: a small, independent, newly established outfit -- so new that Personal Foul would be its inaugural volume -- based in Tampa, Florida, and operated by a political consultant and publicist named Shawna Vercher. Had Nunn heard anything about Donaghy's resignation? Because you're betting on the game, your judgment is off -- and you threw the game.'". One member of the group called it "the ticket" and "the company.". "The only mechanics, he had in his hand. It's like looking at a stock chart. IT REMAINS ONE of the most tantalizing questions in all of American professional sport: Does game-fixing still exist? Sarah Spain on Chiefs running backs coach Deland McCullough's search for his biological parents, When the FBI began interviewing Donaghy's referee colleagues, the agents, according to Scala, eventually spoke to perhaps 10 of them. The Pedowitz Report made no such conclusion. Once Tim, Jimmy, and Tommys betting scheme came to light in 2007, the professional gambler was the only one who refused to speak or cooperate with the FBI in any way, shape, or form. The research entailed interviews with more than 100 people, including current and former NBA referees, current and former NBA staff, gamblers, bookmakers, lawyers, law enforcement officials and friends and relatives of Donaghy. In that moment -- like the many people before him who'd expanded and abetted the scheme and profited from it -- Aron Kulle sensed opportunity. . Typically. ", Mark Fainaru-Wada on how broadcasting icon Bob Costas was yanked from the Super Bowl. They would use, per Martino's statement to the FBI, a code. But this referee didn't lose much. Accusations, innuendo and lies come from a cast of lawyers and characters, including Donaghy's co-conspirators Tommy Martino and Jimmy Battista, telling a story that many have long ago wanted to . Vercher asked him why. "I started thinking -- or should I say, rationalizing: S---, everyone on the staff bets," he wrote. Stern's conclusion that Donaghy did not fix games would be validated by the federal investigation. It was January 2007. Iguodala heading to the bench; Boston covering the spread Donaghy in Seattle, the Sonics hosting the Mavericks, calling 11 straight fouls against Seattle as well as the last foul of the night, with 23 seconds to go. Netflix's Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul revisits . And now, back to your regularly scheduled chants, Kahleah Copper is more than comfortable in the drivers seat for the Sky, Andrew Vaughn, White Sox end 10-game skid with 12-9 comeback win over Rays, What the Cubs April performance says about their identity, Shoplifter stabs Loop Target employee, leading to temporary store closure, The Edgar haircut is one more thing kids, parents can disagree on, Dear Abby: When I travel, friend checking my home also snoops through my things, Coffee machine broken? When I asked, she said she never counted the money, never confronted him about its existence. And normally this guy lost. They just march on, say whatever they want, anyway. One of them was the man that his ex-wife Kim Donaghy described as his forever "partner in crime" -Thomas "Tommy" Martino. "His father is an outstanding man," Rush, now retired, says today. Don't be fishing, because you ain't getting anything out of me." Donaghy has written that Rhino had a handicapping system for picking NFL and college football winners. Battista would cut a deal, pleading guilty in April 2008 only to the charge of transmission of gambling information. According to Donaghy's account, the two were sitting alone in the Radley clubhouse after a round of golf when they decided to bet the NBA. Veteran NBA referee who wagered on his own games but was never charged with manipulating them. But it wasn't just the NBA; according to court documents, they decided to bet on Donaghy's own games. "And it's too obvious.". How Much Did Tim Donaghy Earn From Each Bet? It cost Griffin to produce that book. Donaghy, Griffin said, distracts and diverts. Battista was a creature of that world. In that first March, he bet on only two or three games. Donaghy's story is that he bet on all kinds of things for years with his buddy, including NBA games. Dallas making both free throws, increasing its lead to eight. The FBI had discovered that Donaghy had wagered on as many as 40 of his own games with Concannon during each of the three seasons between 2004 and 2006. SIX DAYS LATER, on June 21, Scala, Harris and their boss, Special Agent in Charge Kevin Hallinan, traveled to the NBA offices in midtown Manhattan and sat down with commissioner David Stern and three other league executives: deputy commissioner Adam Silver, president Joel Litvin and senior vice president of security Bernie Tolbert, a former FBI agent. I was told, 'They're the kind of people who will do anything they can to protect themselves and the game.'". Same with the season after that and the season after that. "Say hello to Johnny for me ". Battista said that if Donaghy could keep games close or far enough to cover the spread, he'd give him $2,000 a game to do so. "I called him the King - Elvis," Battista told HBO Real Sports in an interview aired last night. He knew how to get into other referees' heads too, about different players because [the other refs] would follow him. They played 18 holes four or five days a week. Battista and Donaghy were never to speak directly. Nobody wanted to golf with him, Minutella said. Still, as Rush explained to me over the phone, these were just "trends," not "red flags," and the NBA and the Pedowitz people were interested only in red flags. [3] During his career in the NBA, Donaghy officiated in 772 regular season games and 20 playoff games. Served as one of Battista's biggest "outs" for bets on Donaghy games. It was only later, in 2007, after Donaghy had been exposed, that Donaghy's letter-of-the-law foul-calling acquired a darker hue. But he'd remained close friends after high school with both Donaghy and Battista, who, in turn, were never that close with each other. Favored by 12, Dallas covering Donaghy in Miami calling 12 fouls against visiting Charlotte, two against the Heat. They knew all about what he'd done, they told him; he was looking at 20 years. According to what we've observed after being released from Metropolitan Detention Center-Brooklyn, New York, James "Jimmy" Battista has returned home to the state of Pennsylvania and lives an extremely private life. Ed T. Rush In 1998, Donaghy joined a country club in West Chester, Pennsylvania, called Radley Run, along whose fairways the Donaghys built a spacious home. Probably Donaghy's closest friend in this crowd was a man named Jack Concannon. He served, for example, as a kind of shadow bank for the global underground gambling industry. ", The NBA wouldn't share the specifics of those statistical analyses, but it did describe them in summary form. Born in Greece in 1960, a Boston street bookie in the 1980s, Athanas by the late 1990s had moved to Jamaica, where he turned himself into a sharp bettor and bookmaker on a global scale. No one realizes its a scam. (Of those calls, 2.6 percent could not conclusively be attributed to a referee and were excluded from the study.). His messaging was clear: Donaghy was a rogue. You don't want anyone "from New York" coming to your house, Battista told him. Based on information from Tommy Martino, among others, there were reasons to suspect Donaghy had money on the vast majority of his games during the fateful 2006-07 season, from the very beginning until as late as April 11 -- 65 games in all. The falling-out involved a polygraph test. His body turned numb. Griffin has dogged determination. Then people settle in. One of them was a man nicknamed Tiger. And so it is that May's Supreme Court decision demands a review of the Donaghy affair. That's what they were looking for. Normally this meant making a few "head fake" bets. That, though, represented only one knot of the tangled webs. (Ruggieri did not respond to requests for comment.) Or "influence" or "manipulate" or in any way discussed the mechanics of fixing. Donaghy had Martino arrange the Marriott rendezvous. An intervention Battista two days later wearing a bathrobe in rehab. ", Scala, at the time, was livid. As Scala told me, "If you can envision a spiderweb -- it might not be directly, but one or two or three spheres out, you find a name. The best sports gamblers win about 60% of bets, Battista says in the book, but. Infrequently, Donaghy was at home. Agents monitoring organized crime figures in the Gambino family. There was this NBA referee named Tim Donaghy Popeye's eyes grew wide. Its not like I was laughing at his calls if they helped us, or pissed at his calls if they hurt us. ON A NIGHT in early December 2006, Tommy Martino received an urgent phone call from Battista. Then he hung up. I can imagine TV producers were looking for an on-air mix-up. His mind still foggy with sleep, Nunn could hear the voice of his boss, Joel Litvin, then NBA president, asking questions about Tim Donaghy. They were an organized crime squad, dealing with murder and mayhem. It would have been great for me, great for sales, just for selfish reasons, Griffin said. The final game, Martino remembers, was a loss. "Someone in the NBA notified the press [in order] to stop this investigation, in my opinion. Things may have been different. He said, 'We found the guy. Lamell McMorris served as the lead negotiator for the referees' union in its collective bargaining with the league. "They were looking for something real obvious. "They were intelligent guys who just couldn't have full-time day jobs," says a former gambler who knew them. That's when Donaghy "laid everything out" and "spilled everything," Kulle said. And those bets won -- won like Concannon had never won before. The important comparison is to the team that received the greater amount of betting dollars. His picks were winning at an 88 percent clip, totally unheard of in sports betting for any sustained period of time. Jimmy was ordered to spend 15 months in federal prison. The number of games in which Tim Donaghy favored the team that attracted fewer betting dollars? Donaghy said Boston is gonna kill the Sixers. It matters all the more now. Gaming the Game is definitive, vital to comprehending the NBA scandal and how sports-betting money zips around the world. Thats not the [b.s.] The NBA did too. By June 15, Donaghy was sitting inside the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York in downtown Brooklyn, naming names and making a statement. So the FBI had worked out a plan. "Tiger was the brains behind that group," says one gambler who knew them well. In this, Pedowitz followed the lead of federal investigators, who had analyzed video of Donaghy's games -- recruiting Nunn himself to review eight of them -- based on Donaghy's admission to the Feds that he'd wagered on just 16 of his own games in the final season of his career. "If you looked at the stats," said one gambler in The Office at the time, "you could see he was calling more fouls on the team he bet against and less fouls on the team he bet on. At the same time, at the request of the NBA, former prosecutor Larry Pedowitz conducted an independent investigation of Donaghy's misconduct and issued publicly a 133-page report. There is a footnote buried deep in Gaming the Game that refers to someone taking home in excess of $200 million. Netflix, to me, is the next iteration of that., Donaghy published a book in June 2010, nine months before Gaming.. I knew what it would mean, Battista told Griffin, if I had an NBA ref on my side.. From 2003 to 2007, we didn't miss a game. "Tim was very, very secretive. Martino also penned a book in 2019. The Celtics won 101-81. It was Donaghys 13th NBA season. Moreover, it was indicated he made $20 to $30 million in total for the mob families. I'm thinking he's going to say: Oh s---! Tim Donaghy's downfall began in 2007 when former classmate Jimmy Battista asked Donaghy if he wanted to earn some extra money while he was still an official in the NBA. Martino was not a gambler, had hardly ever placed a bet in his life. He documented a 78% Donaghy win rate and paying him $201,000 for his tips, just a cog in Battistas tentacles, which reached Asia, Europe and Vegas. They produce whatever theyre going to produce, independent of the evidence. I had a good personality to get information out of people on a one-to-one basis [no matter the league], the then-member of The Animals syndicate said, explaining the reason behind his success. A "free roll," as they call it. It was January 2007. What is his Net Worth? The next season, though, the volume rose sharply -- he made between 30 and 40 wagers on games he worked. They're a species of broker that provides services to sports bettors, laying down wagers on their clients' behalf with bookmakers of various types around the world, legal and not. Strictly speaking, movers are neither gamblers nor bookmakers. Jimmy Battista Net Worth Jimmy Battista should have a net worth above $1 million. But the crucial betting information -- which sides of which games the ref favored -- had been seeping into the black-market gambling business. According to Scala, his and the FBI's position has always been that Donaghy's deals with Concannon and Battista irrevocably "tainted" his capacity for officiating, even if only subconsciously. ", Proponents of legalization have long argued that regulation leads to transparency, which helps root out game-fixing schemes. I asked. "During all this s---," he said. He gives the media a press packet, and they read him the questions from it, like its a PR campaign, Griffin said. At the Marriott, Battista thanked Donaghy for the gift. If the pick won, the ref got his two dimes. Better to cooperate. It was his first pick for Battista. He said his old squad had received the initial ref-in-the-pocket tip in October 2006 -- almost two months before Battista had made his marriage with Donaghy. "If it wasn't basketball season, he had a lot of time on his hands," says one of Donaghy's friends. (Concannon declined comment for this story.) And if a ref were to target one particular team with fouls, he could push the score for the opposing side higher than it otherwise would be. Murray Weiss An NBA referee, according to the informant, was "in the pocket" of some people in the sports-gambling underworld. There is, for one, Ed T. Rush, former NBA director of officials, a Philadelphia native and, for 32 years, a referee at the highest level, starting in 1966. That never really flew with us." It's possible, in effect, to buy and sell bets, to go long or go short, to hedge. ", "I didn't touch it 10 years ago, and I'm not touching it now. Can I maybe even invest in this thing? He had the f---ing whistle.". According to multiple sources, Battista first began moving bets for Athanas in 2005. ", In the early 2000s, Rush went on to explain, the NBA undertook a wholesale revision of its refereeing guidelines, changes that would naturally lead to the entire NBA referee corps calling a greater volume of fouls, at least initially. An old classmate, Jimmy Battista, had extorted him into making NBA betting picks for him by saying, "You don't want anyone 'from New York' coming to your house" (via ESPN). And, if he did, what was his method? To Martino, Battista seemed desperate, even frightened. Namely, they were going to wire up Donaghy so he could get other allegedly corrupted NBA referees to incriminate themselves. James "Jimmy" "Bah-Bah" "The Sheep" Battista was a stressed-out, overweight, Oxy-addicted 41-year old, in the hole to some underground gamblers for sums he'd sort of lost track of, when he settled in to watch an NBA game for which he believed he'd just put in the fix. After the scandal, Rush was among those NBA personnel tasked by Pedowitz with reviewing a set of Donaghy games for evidence of game-fixing. This was an episode of gambling, yes, but almost assuredly not match-fixing. But the gig is well-paid -- even rookies in 2007 could make six figures. The Sun-Times Patrick Finley answers the biggest questions facing the Bears after the draft: On this International Workers Day, were committed to fighting for a better future for all workers in our city and state, two labor leaders write. He had many lucrative gambling-related businesses. He'd acted alone. The Feds made no mention of game-fixing. The big problem, Battista said, was that the betting markets appeared to be getting wise to the emergence of an astonishingly accurate NBA handicapper. She struggled to recall exactly when, but she told me she probably started finding the cash in 2004, during the season. There had to be a pattern. Instead, Martino would be in the middle. Battista and Martino were tight, and they drove to the Marriott at Philadelphia International Airport for an exploratory meeting with Donaghy on Dec. 12, 2006. story youve been telling for the past 10 years.. Frequent excursions were made to the Borgata, a casino in Atlantic City. Martino did recall Donaghy telling him that certain games would be unfixable. "I refuse to comment on him. ", From the archives: How former ref Tim Donaghy conspired to fix NBA games, 'It's going to be epic': Stephen Curry and LeBron James face off -- again, Curry sets G7 record with 50 as Dubs move on, Hobbled Butler serves as 'decoy' late in Heat win, Grizz's Brooks doesn't regret verbal jab at LeBron, 'This one's on me': Brunson self-critical after loss, Jokic on Murray's playoffs: 'We are following him', Rivers: Embiid likely doubtful for G1 vs. Celtics, 'This is probably his best shot': Why the time is now for Harden and the 76ers, Celtics-76ers first look: What could decide the battle of East heavyweights, Tigers coach fumes at Zaire v Dwyane comparisons after loss, Which teams will reach the NBA conference finals? [But] nothings there.. But we also found that in 10 games during that 40-game span, one team was defeating the other team to such a degree that the spread was rarely in doubt. No line-movement data would be required. THERE ARE MANY misconceptions about the Tim Donaghy scandal. In the runup to the 2024 election, the Sun-Times, WBEZ and the Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago will be collaborating on a project to educate our audience about the threat to our democracy and how we can form a more perfect union., Tim Donaghy returns to spotlight in Netflix documentary but somethings missing, Bears draft review: Pieces in place for Justin Fields, White Sox win! 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Litvin then filled him in on the worst of it and told him there was an ongoing investigation, instructing him to say nothing about any of it to anyone. Ever since Donaghy emerged from prison in 2009, he has lived in the same unit in a town house apartment complex in Sarasota. When Donaghy became an NBA ref, that continued, sometimes with hookers. The dubious mafia threat. Getty Images LAS VEGAS By January 2007, Jimmy Battista's NBA bets had attracted the attention of the world's heavyweight gamblers, who had connected referee Tim Donaghy to that action. I have incredibly low expectations for whatever they produce, Griffin said by phone from Charleston, South Carolina. Tim Donaghy, 55, was born in Pennsylvania on 7 January 1967 and worked in the NBA from 1994-2007. But Warren Flagg, a private investigator and former FBI agent who worked with Donaghy's attorney during the case, will. He had the artwork. After Donaghy, the NBA put into place a host of new measures designed to detect any nascent game-fixing schemes. Martino would then relay the pick to Battista. NBA commissioner at the time of the scandal. That clip has Donaghy saying "Tommy was one of those guys all the girls loved, athletic, funny, good-looking kid that everybody liked." It then has Battista saying "He had good street smarts,. And indeed, the chart for the Boston-Philly game on Dec. 13, 2006, shows the price for Boston spiking and then shrinking back. Barricade Books, his publisher, had issues. Money drops and cash settlements in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania; in New York City; in Las Vegas; in San Francisco. For that reason, he had a lot of cash on hand. Veteran NBA referee and Nunn's immediate predecessor as director of officials. A former gambler that was unquestionably tied to the biggest betting scandal in NBA history, is of the opinion that disgraced referee Tim Donaghy did not act alone and had help from other game officials. . Malloy, Crawford and Callahan all attended Delaware County's Cardinal O'Hara High School, Donaghy's alma mater -- a cradle within a cradle. An old classmate, Jimmy Battista, had extorted him into making NBA betting picks for him by saying, "You don't want anyone 'from New York' coming to your house" (via ESPN). A few years ago, he bought its rights and original digital files. Battista rolled $7,000 in a rubber band two for the Celtics tip, five as a signing bonus at the edge of Martinos couch for Donaghy. He even contacted Murray Weiss, the Post reporter who wrote the story, to uncover the source of the leak. On May 14 of last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that had forbidden states from legalizing sports gambling within their own borders. When Donaghy had finished, Kulle leaned back in his chair. If youre in a pinch and lack a coffee machine and a grinder, you can try making whats called cowboy coffee. This might not be the tastiest cup of joe, but itll certainly get the job done. Just one game of potential funny business out of 17 wasn't nearly enough to accuse the referee of anything. " And still it went on Donaghy in Dallas on Jan. 30 calling one foul against the home team and 12 against Seattle, including six straight against the Sonics when the margin was 13 or fewer. FAQ: How will legal gambling change the NBA and the way we watch it? To Scala, Stern seemed mostly upset that the NBA's in-house security people had failed to discover Donaghy's wrongdoing before the FBI. That way, Battista could begin to prepare the markets, to manipulate the prices in their favor. But at the time the scandal broke, the NBA closed ranks. And: You don't want the NBA to find out about what you've been doing with Concannon. Freedom of Information Act requests were filed. "I think there's enough that's been written about Tim Donaghy. Perhaps this is why the men who formed Battista's loose, disorderly investor group, the men who were "on the ticket," have, for all these years, remained in the shadows. The Feds' job, on this one, was done. Donaghy was horrible betting every other sport. They'd gone to the same parochial high school in the working-class Catholic neighborhoods of Delaware County, just outside Philadelphia -- Delco, as it's sometimes called -- where the sports bars are abundant, where a certain easy familiarity with all forms of gambling prevails, where guys have bookies like they've got dentists. Dear Abby: Is it cheating if nothing physical ever happened? Whether or not Battista made them explicitly aware of his agreement with Donaghy, their money was used to make one very specific genre of bet: games refereed by Tim Donaghy. By chance, over the years its members had all acquired animal nicknames: Tiger, Rooster, Rhino, Seal, Sheep. He works seven days every week. But suddenly this recreational dumb-money insurance salesman was putting five dimes each on select NBA games and beating the bookies? Griffin already had published a bestseller in 2005 with Black Brothers, Inc. about the violent rise and fall of Philadelphias black mafia. Favored by 6, the visiting Wizards covering Battista on March 15 confessing to his wife that he'd lost $7 million of his clients' money Battista on March 16 strung out and sleepless at Martino's house and surrounded suddenly by almost his entire immediate family.
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