The arrest of Chauncey Billups in a sprawling gambling investigation shook up the NBA — and his hometown.
Billups is the coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, but he’s known in Colorado as “The King of Park Hill” and a former CU Boulder and Denver Nuggets basketball player.
“There's a lot of disbelief,” said Leon Kelly, the local minister and anti-violence activist, who has known Billups since he was a middle-schooler.
Kelly had heard rumors on Wednesday night that news might break about Billups, but only learned on Thursday that he had been arrested alongside more than 30 other people in an investigation that spans the nation and the world. Also arrested was Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier.
“We're seeing all over the headlines — our neighborhood hero, champion, standard bearer,” said Jeff Fard, better known as Brother Jeff Fard, the northeast Denver community leader. “A heck of a thing to wake up to is an understatement.”
Billups was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games in Las Vegas, Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons that were backed by La Cosa Nostra Crime families.
While the poker indictment makes sweeping allegations about Billups and the others, it references Billups specifically only in connection to card games in Las Vegas "in or around April 2019." In those games, according to the indictment, Billups, among others, "organized and participated in these rigged games using a rigged shuffling machine ..."
Both Billups and Rozier face money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy charges. Prosecutors accused Rozier in a scheme to rig sports bets by altering athletes’ performances; Billups was not named in relation to that scheme.
A long legacy in Denver
“I've known this kid — since he was a kid. I've seen him grow up,” Kelly said. Billups and his family, he said, “have, I feel, great morals and great values. You know, we often say that one is certainly innocent until proven guilty.”
Born in 1976, Billups was raised in Park Hill in northeast Denver and attended George Washington High School in southeast Denver, where he was repeatedly honored as “Mr. Basketball” for the state of Colorado. He would eventually have the words “King of Park Hill” tattooed on his arm.
At CU Boulder, Billups took the Buffaloes to their first NCAA Tournament win in nearly 30 years.
“Chauncey Billups has been a valued member [of] the CU Buffs community. CU Athletics learned today through the media about the allegations against him. As this is an ongoing investigation which does not involve CU, we have no further comment,” university officials said in a statement.
Billups eventually won an NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. He also played for the Denver Nuggets from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2011. Billups was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.
Billups has been placed on leave from the Portland Trail Blazers, where he has been the head coach since 2021.
He has remained a presence in Denver throughout his career. His likeness is shown in a large mural in Skyland Park, where he played as a young man. While working in television in Los Angeles, he returned three days a week to Denver to be with his wife and three daughters, The Athletic reported at the time.
Billups also is known for his involvement in the Porter-Billups Leadership Academy, a college prep program founded by former Regis University Head Coach Lonnie Porter, which Billups joined as a supporter in 2006.
“He has not forgotten where he comes from,” Kelly said.
In recent years, he was part of an effort to renovate the historic Rossonian Hotel in Five Points, though he later separated from the project, and the project has not come to fruition.
Billups also has stayed involved in local politics. He endorsed Mayor Mike Johnston in his 2023 elections campaign.
Fard expected the Park Hill community to stand with Billups.
“Chauncey is from Park Hill. He's going to withstand this storm. We're going to stand with him. And I guarantee you, at the end of all of whatever this is, Chauncey Billups will be standing tall. That's Mr. Big Shot. That's Park Hill,” Fard said.
The court cases have shaken the NBA and grabbed the national spotlight.
"The fraud is mind boggling," FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters. “We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multi-year investigation.”
The poker scheme is alleged to have cheated at least $7 million out of unsuspecting gamblers who were lured into rigged games with the chance to compete against former professional basketball players like Billups and Jones.
The indictment claims that games were rigged using sophisticated cheating technology, such as altered card-shuffling machines, hidden cameras in poker chip trays, special sunglasses and even X-ray equipment built into the table to read the cards of unsuspecting players.
Once the targeted victims — known as “fish” — lost, Mafia families used extortion and violence to make sure they paid their gambling debts, Nocella said.
Prosecutors are arguing for releasing Billups and Jones but with “substantial bail conditions,” including a prohibition on any form of gambling and travel restrictions.
“My initial thoughts are caution not to be sucked into headlines and sensationalism that seems to drive a lot of the public narrative,” Fard said.
Billups and Rozier were expected to make initial court appearances on Thursday.
“God forbid … if it was true to any degree …, the question is, what happened? Was he pressured?” Kelly said, “Why? Why? Why? But, you know, again, we all make choices, and sometimes there are bad choices.”
CPR News journalist Anthony Cotton and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
