When former NBA player Damon Jones, accused of providing inside information to sports players, first filed for bankruptcy in 2013, he had to list his Yorkshire Terrier as an asset.
The unnamed dog was valued, according to court documents, at just $1.
A decade later, Jones was months away from being evicted from a luxury Houston apartment building when prosecutors allege he texted a co-conspirator and urged him to bet on the Milwaukee Bucks against Los Angeles because a top Lakers player, believed to be LeBron James, was out with an injury.
Jones went from relative anonymity as a former NBA player and coach to the forefront of one of the biggest betting scandals in modern sports when he was named by federal prosecutors last week in two separate indictments allegedly involving organized betting and poker games tied to the mob.
NBC News reviewed more than 150 pages of Jones’ court documents, including financial forms, spanning more than a decade and showing persistent financial problems for the former athlete. In addition to the eviction proceedings, Jones included his 2016 NBA championship ring as collateral for a personal loan and was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
“Operation Nothing But Bet” is one of two sprawling federal investigations into illegal gambling that were unveiled on October 23; the other is an investigation into rigged high-stakes poker games allegedly backed by the mob called “Operation Royal Flush” that led to the arrest of several people, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. Prosecutors said evidence in the latest case includes “financial records, phone records, cell phone logs and text messages, cell phone extractions and location information, the contents of Apple iCloud accounts, witness testimony and surveillance photographs.”
Jones has not yet entered a plea, but is due to appear in federal court for his arraignment in New York. Jones’ attorney declined to comment.
Jones’ current address, based on available records, appears to be the Houston apartment from which a property management company attempted to evict him in June 2023, claiming he owed about $5,600 in rent, records show.
The management company dismissed the case after Jones failed to appear in court. But in August 2023, the company filed another eviction notice against Jones, this time alleging that he owed more than $11,000 in back rent.
Once again, Jones failed to appear in court and the judge entered a default judgment in favor of the company, granting it possession of the apartment and slapping Jones with a monetary judgment of $11,240, records show.
When the court attempted to send Jones a copy of the default judgment, the notice was returned because the address was insufficient.
The management company has not responded to NBC News’ request for comment.
Jones’ financial problems date back to at least 2013, when his initial bankruptcy case was dismissed. Two years later, Jones filed for bankruptcy again and this time, according to court records, he declared between $500,000 and $1 million in liabilities and claimed to have assets in the range of $100,001 to $500,000.
Jones, those records showed, owed about $640,000 to creditors and $47,000 to Bellagio Hotels and Casino for “breach of contract/confession of judgment.”
It’s unclear what happened to that bankruptcy case. Bellagio did not respond to an inquiry from NBC News.
But in 2019, another man came to light who said Jones owed him money, court records show.
Scott Kerr filed a civil lawsuit against Jones seeking monetary damages of $100,000 or less. According to the record, Jones borrowed $10,000 from Kerr. That, plus a $4,000 fee, was supposed to be paid by August 28, 2017.
Jones did not repay the loan and the collateral Jones provided to secure Kerr’s loan was his 2016 NBA championship ring, according to the document, which added that he also did not provide collateral.
Kerr wasn’t the only person Jones allegedly confronted. Between October 2023 and November 2024, Jones received complaints from three men who said he had not repaid them thousands of dollars in loans.
One of them, Antonio Hooper, said in a November 2024 filing that Jones had agreed in writing to pay him $20,000 in exchange for a $4,500 loan. His filing included screenshots of text exchanges with Jones, including one in which the former NBA player mentions that “Bron” couldn’t “get over the Sports Illustrated article he wrote.”
Hooper, in a telephone interview, said Jones never returned the money. He said the reason he was asking for $20,000 is because he lent Jones more money after the initial $4,500 loan. He also said he and Jones have mutual friends in the NBA.
“I don’t know what article Damon was talking about,” said Hooper, who said he runs a youth basketball program in Houston. “But I have a friend who was looking for a job in the NBA and Damon put him on the phone with LeBron for an interview. He didn’t get the job and LeBron didn’t like Damon negotiating his name. He didn’t appreciate it.”
James did not immediately respond to a request for comment through the Lakers.
Jones was one of more than 30 people arrested in the operations. Also caught was Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who is accused of faking an injury to withdraw from a game in 2023 while playing for the Charlotte Hornets, tipping off a friend who, in turn, “sold that tip” to players betting on that Hornets game against the New Orleans Pelicans.
Like Jones, Rozier is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. And like Jones, Rozier has also had money problems.
In 2023, the IRS filed a federal tax lien in Florida against Rozier for $8.2 million in unpaid taxes from 2021.
In August 2022, a construction company filed a lien against Rozier for more than $270,000, according to a lawsuit filed in Florida. A year later, Rozier paid all but $20,000 of the lien, court documents showed.
Rozier has yet to plead guilty to the federal charges. Rozier’s attorney rejected allegations that his client owed millions to the government.
“The federal tax lien story is nonsense. His total tax liability was about $8 million. Between the CPAs and the IRS, something happened with his electronic filing, so the IRS issued a lien on the entire amount. The actual tax deficiency ended up being $3,000, and that was paid. We expect the now-defunct lien to be removed in the near future,” Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, said Friday.
