Terry Rozier’s attorneys claim 2023 text message should ‘end’ federal case against him

Terry Rozier has asked a federal judge to throw out two of the four charges brought against him over the last year by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In a new filing Friday, lawyers for Rozier said that the NBA veteran never agreed to manipulate his performance for the sake of sports gamblers and that Rozier did not know that anyone was betting on his stats during a March 23, 2023, game while he was with the Charlotte Hornets, as federal prosecutors have alleged.

For the first time, Rozier’s lawyer offered what they claim is proof that he was not involved in the sports gambling scheme that led to charges for six men last October and guilty pleas by three of them so far. According to the filing, Deniro Laster, Rozier’s friend and a co-defendant in the case, sent a text on March 29 — six days after the game in question and as prosecutors have said he was picking up his payment from a gambler who allegedly profited from insider information on Rozier — instructing the person not to tell Rozier about the bet on him.

“Dont tell chum bout the bet,” Laster said in the message, referring to Rozier by what his lawyers say is his nickname.

“This should end the case,” lawyers for Rozier wrote in the legal filing. “One does not hide a bet from the person who supposedly sold it.”

Rozier is facing four federal charges brought out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, including wire fraud and sports bribery. His attorneys are asking the judge to dismiss counts 3 and 4 for sports bribery and honest services fraud. Rozier asked the judge in December to dismiss the other two counts he faces but has not yet received a decision. The attorneys also requested that the judge move the case to the Southern District of Florida.

Federal prosecutors say that Rozier agreed to accept a $100,000 payment to take himself out early from that 2023 Hornets game so that a group of sports gamblers could win money wagering on his prop bets. He played 9:34 in that 2023 game and did not reach his season averages in points, assists or 3s but did surpass the over/under line in rebounds.

The charges were part of a larger case that implicated 11-year NBA veteran Damon Jones and claimed that non-public insider information was being sold to and used by gamblers to profit on NBA games. Last month, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District charged two more NBA veterans, Malik Beasley and Ed Davis, along with three others, with running a scheme to manipulate Beasley’s performance in games so they could make money on it.

Rozier was first arrested and charged in October, but prosecutors filed a superseding indictment in May, adding two new charges. He has pleaded not guilty and denied the claims through his lawyers.

“Terry Rozier is innocent,” lawyers for Rozier wrote in a new motion to dismiss the case filed Friday. “He is a basketball player, not a gambler. He never bet on anything, never agreed to underperform, never did underperform, and did not know that anyone was wagering on his statistics in the Charlotte Hornets’ March 23, 2023, game.”

Lawyers for Rozier told the judge that they believe some of the claims prosecutors made against Rozier don’t constitute an offense under the federal law they cited, and that, in charging Rozier with sports bribery, prosecutors ignored that the law applies to the outcome or score of a game, not individual performance.

Of the six people originally charged in the case, Rozier is one of three still set to go to trial, along with Jones and Shane Hennen. Hennen, who is alleged to have been one of the gamblers involved, pleaded guilty this week in a related case that claimed he was part of a rigged poker scheme which implicated Hall of Famer and former Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and 29 others.

Marves Fairley, who prosecutors said paid Laster after the bet involving Rozier, pleaded guilty in May and told a federal judge during his hearing that he agreed to pay Rozier “to change their game performance.”

Rozier, Jones and Hennan’s trial has been set for Feb. 8.