Banned NBA player Jontay Porter’s gambling accomplice arrested at JFK
A New York man has been arrested on suspicion of placing bets on Jontay Porter in games the Toronto Raptors forward was trying to lose as part of a sports betting scheme, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Long Phi “Bruce” Pham, a 38-year-old from Brooklyn, was taken into custody Monday after being apprehended at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
He was reportedly about to take a one-way flight to Australia before authorities arrested him and charged him with conspiring to defraud a sports betting company.
Porter, 24, was given a lifetime ban by the NBA in April for “disclosing confidential information to sports bettors, restricting his own participation in one or more games for gambling purposes and betting on NBA games.”
Porter allegedly owed Pham and three others large sums of money from sports betting losses, and the co-conspirators told Porter he could get rid of those debts by leaving the games early to ensure prop bets – on him – were collected.
Ex-Raptors forward Jontay Porter revealed insider information to punters while betting on games
The three other co-conspirators have not yet been arrested.
Federal prosecutors said Pham knew Porter would be coming out of Toronto’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Jan. 26, prompting him to place bets tied to Porter’s performance that would certainly score.
Porter played four minutes and did not score. He left the match due to an eye injury.
Pham and the three suspects who are still at large have made more than $1 million in profits, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Bets were also placed on Porter for a March 20 game against the Sacramento Kings, a game that Pham and the co-conspirators allegedly wagered on at a casino in Atlantic City, NJ.
The 24-year-old is the first active player to be banned from the NBA for gambling since 1954
Porter left that game after three scoreless minutes due to illness.
He is now the first active player to be banned from the NBA for gambling since Jack Molinas in 1954.
Porter is also the first active player to be permanently banned from the NBA without the means to eventually return to the league since Richard Dumas in 1995.
The 24-year-old is the younger brother of Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr.. His younger brothers, Jevon and Coban, were convicted of drunken driving in May.
Jevon – who was cleared by Pepperdine University after the incident – received a concurrent eight-year prison sentence in January 2023 for the vehicular homicide of a 42-year-old woman and causing injury to a passenger in her car. Colorado
Coban – formerly a University of Denver security guard – was sentenced to six years in prison.