Suspended Portland Trail Blazers Coach Chauncey Billups is pleading not guilty to federal charges relating to participating in an illegal gambling ring. As reported by AP News, Billups appeared in a Brooklyn, New York courtroom this morning to enter his initial plea.

Billups was arrested last month, accused of being a front man and participant in poker games run and rigged by organized crime figures, luring players to tables that were coordinated and stacked against them. Billups has also been named, but not indicted, as a source of information for suspect “inside” bets on a Trail Blazers game in 2023.

Per the AP, “Prosecutors say the poker scheme Billups was involved in defrauded victims of an estimated $7 million starting in at least 2019.”

The NBA suspended Billups at the time of his

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