jimmy battista tim donaghy

ESPN ignores this important distinction. Timothy Francis Donaghy ( / dni /; born January 7, 1967) [2] is a former professional basketball referee who worked in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 13 seasons from 1994 to 2007 until he was caught in a gambling scandal. The agents informed Stern that it had come to their attention that one of their veteran refs, Tim Donaghy, had been betting on his own games and giving inside information to a gambling ring, for a fee. He has been working on something big, as Tom Petty sang, for 10 years, and its near-future publication will be a bombshell. Instead, he surprised me. In Sarasota, Kim Donaghy printed out for me the first 98 pages of her unfinished and unpublished memoir, The Ref's Wife. Over the course of the past decade, he's built a company that has become one of the biggest Planet Fitness franchisees in the nation, with more than 30 locations and exclusive rights to the regions of Philadelphia and Chicago. (Rufo declined to comment for this story.) Gaming the Game: The Story Behind the NBA Betting Scandal and the She struggled to recall exactly when, but she told me she probably started finding the cash in 2004, during the season. Still, as Rush explained to me over the phone, these were just "trends," not "red flags," and the NBA and the Pedowitz people were interested only in red flags. There had to be a pattern. How Much Did Tim Donaghy Earn From Each Bet? Im not nave, Griffin said. A few weeks later, four days after the Post story broke, David Stern gave his first news conference. The Animals landed in Curaao, where they helped launch an online sportsbook known as PlayASAP. Guess which one contains footnotes, source notes, cross-referenced facts from many officials and resources and exhaustive due diligence conducted by a forensic expert with a Ph.D. in Administration of Justice from Penn State? "He played golf and gambled.". But Battista never used the word "fix." I would not have gone to brief Stern," Scala told me. What does it mean to "fix" a game? In 2003 in Curaao, when the Animals had made their original deduction and followed the Donaghy-Concannon bets, Tiger had been the leader of the Animals' betting office. Jimmy Battista, to participate in the betting. It was situated in a house a block off the beach. But she would keep finding such rolls in his pockets as the years went on. When Donaghy became an NBA ref, that continued, sometimes with hookers. They were among his biggest brokerage clients and most trusted outs. Several sports-betting experts -- two former underground movers and a longtime professional NBA gambler -- agreed that global markets contained enough liquidity in 2007 for an in-the-know bettor to win as much as $100 million. Along with the rest of the Animals, Battista had returned from Curaao in 2004 after PlayASAP had gone belly-up. The methods of fixing are rather straightforward. There is, for one, Ed T. Rush, former NBA director of officials, a Philadelphia native and, for 32 years, a referee at the highest level, starting in 1966. 'Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul' clip shows Tim Donaghy's relationship "And like everything else, when you make changes, initially you'll have an overreaction. "They were looking for something real obvious. Scala reached the FBI's mandatory retirement age in 2008 and is now a private detective based on Long Island. I was told, 'They're the kind of people who will do anything they can to protect themselves and the game.'". Seth Wickersham on the Cleveland Browns' front office -- and where hope and history collide. "Indeed," Stern assured the assembled media, "as a matter of his on-court performance, he's in the top tier of accuracy.". ", Scala, at the time, was livid. Among them: Who made the real money? The latest updates, reviews and . The big problem, Battista said, was that the betting markets appeared to be getting wise to the emergence of an astonishingly accurate NBA handicapper. One member of the group called it "the ticket" and "the company.". It is normal, of course, for a referee to call more fouls against one team than the other. It's impossible,'" Scala says. Short, squat, thick-necked, Ruggieri was built, some thought, like a small rhinoceros. Nothing to see here. Because this edge, this treasure, was in danger of evaporating, Battista had decided that he needed to assume direct control over the referee. He was what's known as a mover. The ESPN Article attempts to revive this old story. In 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy was arrested for betting on games he officiated. To the gambler's enduring surprise, Donaghy acknowledged that, yes, he deliberately called more fouls against the side he'd bet against. Once we completed all of that, what we uncovered was that Donaghy's foul calls favored the team that received the heavier betting 70 percent of the time. They included a beefed-up computerized system for monitoring refs' foul calls; enhanced scrutiny of betting-line fluctuations that might reveal suspicious wagering; the hiring of staff with experience in law enforcement, security and data analysis; and even the cultivation of tipsters within the sports-gambling industry who could relay rumors of possible corruption. The effort to hide it was in vain. "I refuse to comment on him. One source with knowledge of the conspiracy says that Battista moved as much as $500,000 in wagers on this game: "We had a big bet on that. In his endeavors, Battista had a sometime assistant, another high school chum, Tommy Martino, who acted as a liaison in the Donaghy scheme. And then there's the offseason. Only a fool, Dr. Sean Patrick Griffin wrote, would have ignored Battistas ridiculously obvious wagering success.. Now there's a Netflix documentary on the subject, . And those bets won -- won like Concannon had never won before. If you think the Celtics are the side that's likely to cover, then you go to market as early in the trading session as possible and put some money on Philly. Donaghy worked the game. IT REMAINS ONE of the most tantalizing questions in all of American professional sport: Does game-fixing still exist? IT WAS DEC. 12, 2006, a Tuesday, an hour before midnight, at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott, inside that hotel's primary restaurant, called at the time the Riverbend Bar & Grille. Then later in the day, with the price right, you gobble up all the Boston you can. He'd acted alone. To answer those questions, Pedowitz convened a group of NBA basketball operations personnel to watch games worked by Donaghy during the 2006-07 season -- but the ensuing report did not fully explain the limited number of games they decided to review. . Among those to share their tale is thus his co-conspirator James Jimmy Battista so now, if you wish to learn more about him as well as his current standing, weve got all the details for you. You agree with all that? His body turned numb. The pact was: "Don't tell anybody. "We all had expectations that Tim was going to be really, really good. After learning about the suspicious circumstances surrounding the leak of the original Donaghy story and Jimmy Battista's plea deal, the crew investigates the most controversial game in . Battista called him a strange, mean-spirited guy.. She describes the moment she picked up his official NBA jacket to put it in the wash and found in the pocket "a huge wad of $100 bills rolled in a rubber band." Had Battista gone to trial, Donaghys character would have come under immense scrutiny. It was January 2007. So when Gaming appeared at No. TIM DONAGHY HAS always publicly denied that he deliberately manipulated games so as to win bets, arguing that he based his picks on insider information. "I called him the King - Elvis," Battista told HBO Real Sports in an interview aired last night. But now, when Battista arrived at Martino's house, he dropped the bomb. Just before tip-off, Battista bet $60,000 on Boston, bumping the line to 3.5 points. That's the bottom line. Why? ", From the archives: How former ref Tim Donaghy conspired to fix NBA games, 'It's going to be epic': Stephen Curry and LeBron James face off -- again, Curry sets G7 record with 50 as Dubs move on, Hobbled Butler serves as 'decoy' late in Heat win, Grizz's Brooks doesn't regret verbal jab at LeBron, 'This one's on me': Brunson self-critical after loss, Jokic on Murray's playoffs: 'We are following him', Rivers: Embiid likely doubtful for G1 vs. Celtics, 'This is probably his best shot': Why the time is now for Harden and the 76ers, Celtics-76ers first look: What could decide the battle of East heavyweights, Tigers coach fumes at Zaire v Dwyane comparisons after loss, Which teams will reach the NBA conference finals? In 2014, commissioner Adam Silver penned an op-ed in The New York Times advocating for legalization. Our experts predict every series, 2023 NBA playoffs: Second-round series, Finals, MVP odds, 'He looks better than ever': Why the Orlando bubble was 'just the beginning' for Jamal Murray, Pregame chats, language arts and 'a lot of fines': Inside NBA player-ref dynamics, United States of sports betting: An updated map of where every state stands. Martino would receive a year and Donaghy and Battista 15 months each in federal prison. The NBA did too. But that was the company line.". For 11 years, the official plotline has been that Donaghy was a rogue, gambling-addicted ref who made some bets on his own games -- and nothing more. What is his Net Worth. Served as one of Battista's biggest "outs" for bets on Donaghy games. If the pick won, the ref got his two dimes. Had he heard about Donaghy's gambling "issues" -- about what he had done? ", Said another: "Did I assume he was fixing the games? Battista had such a network. I just focus on evidence, his betting records, any number of things I can quantify, the ridiculous things he says in his book, like, I agree with everything Judge Amon said., Really? Jimmy "the Sheep" Battista & NBA Revelations In "Gaming The Game". There is a footnote buried deep in Gaming the Game that refers to someone taking home in excess of $200 million. That couldve helped me and absolutely would have hurt Timmy, [but] I wasnt a rat.. ", Not every retired referee is reticent. The next season, though, the volume rose sharply -- he made between 30 and 40 wagers on games he worked. Thats when Battista started calling Donaghy Elvis, The King of prognosticating NBA games including his own, Battista told Griffin. The Animals went so far as to study the box scores after each of Donaghy's outings. The best sports gamblers win about 60% of bets, Battista says in the book, but. "Nobody picked winners . Thats because this Netflix original documentary features first-hand accounts to elucidate precisely how and why once-renowned NBA referee Timothy Tim Donaghy staked on his own games. They'd gone to the same parochial high school in the working-class Catholic neighborhoods of Delaware County, just outside Philadelphia -- Delco, as it's sometimes called -- where the sports bars are abundant, where a certain easy familiarity with all forms of gambling prevails, where guys have bookies like they've got dentists. The closing line: Dallas by 8 Donaghy on New Year's Day in Charlotte calling 14 fouls against the Bobcats, five against the Timberwolves; the Wolves covering Battista usually watched these games at home, but sometimes not. ", To this day, what amounts to something like a self-imposed gag order on the subject of Donaghy persists, even among those refs who no longer work for the league. His brief was to audit the entire NBA referee program for corruption, but he also had a narrower goal: figuring out whether Donaghy had indeed fixed games. But stomping out a Mafia profit center was. Phone records of gamblers said to have connections with the Gambino crime family were obtained and analyzed, phone numbers traced back to names. Convicted Jimmy "the Sheep" Battista Lifts The Lid On NBA Games. But the person who knows more about the case than anyone isnt on the show and wont be watching. Tommy, Tim, and James "Jimmy" "Baba" Battista had attended the same Cardinal O'Hara High School, but the former was the only mutual link a few years later since he was friends with both. Martino said Donaghy cheated on tests, too, at Villanova. Battista, who'd drifted as a bartender, restaurant manager and small-time hustler after high school, was in his early 20s when, according to Gaming the Game, a book about the Donaghy scandal by former Philly police detective Sean Patrick Griffin, Rinnier recruited him to join the group. According to Martino, if Donaghy mentioned out-of-state Johnny's name, the pick was for the visiting team. The NBA conducted its own investigation and concluded that Donaghy, in fact, did not fix games. Veteran NBA referee and Nunn's immediate predecessor as director of officials. Or even put him in any kind of limelight at all. Today, Scala considers that meeting a mistake. After learning about the suspicious circumstances surrounding the leak of the original Donaghy story and Jimmy Battista's plea deal, the crew investigates the most . Whether or not Battista made them explicitly aware of his agreement with Donaghy, their money was used to make one very specific genre of bet: games refereed by Tim Donaghy. And what more did you want? But this referee didn't lose much. The Philly ref blood runs deep. Who Is Jimmy Battista? Once Tim, Jimmy, and Tommys betting scheme came to light in 2007, the professional gambler was the only one who refused to speak or cooperate with the FBI in any way, shape, or form. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. One, Johnny, lived in Jersey. So I didnt really have time to focus on it, let alone enjoy it., I dont want to say the NBA scandal was easy, he said, but once I got access to personnel in the U.S. attorneys offices and FBI agents, they were not only confirming what Battista said but were elaborating.. There's also Scala, who told me he heard from his informants that underground gamblers "could have been making over a hundred million dollars" on Donaghy's games. Several people from the sports-betting underworld had, in effect, staked Battista a bankroll -- a fund he was now using to bet on games officiated by this one NBA referee. He knew how to control it. "And it's too obvious.". If youre in a pinch and lack a coffee machine and a grinder, you can try making whats called cowboy coffee. This might not be the tastiest cup of joe, but itll certainly get the job done. From what we can tell, since his release from the Metropolitan Detention Center-Brooklyn in New York, James Jimmy Battista has returned to his home state of Pennsylvania, where he leads a relatively private life. He has recently admitted that he wishes he was still an NBS referee. Dear Abby: Is it cheating if nothing physical ever happened? The Celtics, favored by 2.5 points, went on to win in a blowout. They were an organized crime squad, dealing with murder and mayhem. It was 0.232. Born in Greece in 1960, a Boston street bookie in the 1980s, Athanas by the late 1990s had moved to Jamaica, where he turned himself into a sharp bettor and bookmaker on a global scale. How Tim Donaghy's NBA Betting Antics Made Him A Target Of The Mob In the car at the gas station, according to Gaming the Game, Donaghy had said: Bet the Celtics. A former gambler that was unquestionably tied to the biggest betting scandal in NBA history, is of the opinion that disgraced referee Tim Donaghy did not act alone and had help from other game officials. Unlikely but not outrageously so. And it was there, in the otherwise vacant dining area, seated around a table, that Battista and Donaghy, with Martino witnessing, consummated their deal. All this occurred while Rush was director of officials, from 1998 to 2003. They were now entering the sixth week of the scheme -- what you might call a sustained period of time. As Scala told me, "If you can envision a spiderweb -- it might not be directly, but one or two or three spheres out, you find a name. ", "I didn't touch it 10 years ago, and I'm not touching it now. Freedom of Information Act requests were filed. Joseph "Joe Vito" Mastronardo They'd shut down a Gambino profit center. He started small. Im one of the idiots who bought Donaghys book. After the scandal, Rush was among those NBA personnel tasked by Pedowitz with reviewing a set of Donaghy games for evidence of game-fixing. Griffin already had published a bestseller in 2005 with Black Brothers, Inc. about the violent rise and fall of Philadelphias black mafia. And he could have been.". He and the other Animals who'd been following the bets were not happy. In high school, during a trip to the Jersey Shore, Donaghy got drunk and scavenged through neighbors homes, stealing items. "Tim was very, very secretive. It's like looking at a stock chart. ", In the early 2000s, Rush went on to explain, the NBA undertook a wholesale revision of its refereeing guidelines, changes that would naturally lead to the entire NBA referee corps calling a greater volume of fouls, at least initially. It was too obvious. Like many in their cohort, Concannon had a bookie, Peter Ruggieri, who also golfed frequently with Donaghy and Concannon's crew. Tommy Martino was tight with both Donaghy and Battista. They played 18 holes four or five days a week. "All I'm seeing," he said he told Donaghy, "is a movie. Battista had known the ref, Timmy Donaghy, for 25 years. He thought he was having a heart attack. Because he was a sometime member of the same golfing circle back home, Ruggieri knew that Concannon and NBA ref Tim Donaghy were friends. "Say hello to Johnny for me ". ], Griffin, 52, said. Iguodala heading to the bench; Boston covering the spread Donaghy in Seattle, the Sonics hosting the Mavericks, calling 11 straight fouls against Seattle as well as the last foul of the night, with 23 seconds to go. And at some point, per a person close to the situation, Battista had to tell Athanas, a heavy NBA bettor, that Battista believed he had a profitable edge; a different person close to Athanas' syndicate a decade ago told me that Athanas bet more heavily on Donaghy's games in the 2006-07 season than he did on other NBA games. In Martino's words, "Blowouts, he can't control." High school friend of Donaghy and Battista who served as the go-between in the betting scheme during the 2006-2007 NBA season. "I was warned," Weiss told me, "that if I stumbled, Stern would do anything he could to crush me. We began by obtaining the trading histories for those games and through those determined which team was the more heavily bet upon. Battista heard Donaghy make racist NBA comments. He staffed it with working-class Delco kids ambitious to earn. ", Mark Fainaru-Wada on how broadcasting icon Bob Costas was yanked from the Super Bowl. "His father is an outstanding man," Rush, now retired, says today. Gaming the Game is definitive, vital to comprehending the NBA scandal and how sports-betting money zips around the world. An NBA referee, according to the informant, was "in the pocket" of some people in the sports-gambling underworld. The best movers spend years compiling vast networks of clients and "outs," or counterparties, with whom the movers can trade. IT WOULD NOT be the only time Tim Donaghy would come clean. Around the same time as Stern's news conference, the NBA also commissioned an investigation, to be led by Larry Pedowitz, a partner with the elite New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. But the gig is well-paid -- even rookies in 2007 could make six figures. Agents monitoring organized crime figures in the Gambino family. (When I contacted Weiss, who now works as a producer for CBS News' 48 Hours, he said he didn't recall this conversation.) July 9 is the anniversary of Donaghy's resignation from the NBA. Stern's conclusion that Donaghy did not fix games would be validated by the federal investigation. They just march on, say whatever they want, anyway. Sarah Spain on Chiefs running backs coach Deland McCullough's search for his biological parents, When the FBI began interviewing Donaghy's referee colleagues, the agents, according to Scala, eventually spoke to perhaps 10 of them. If it were shown that Donaghy had indeed fixed the games he reffed, it would reveal an uncomfortable truth, one that almost everyone -- leagues, teams, fans, gamblers -- would prefer to ignore: just how easy and profitable it is to fix an American sport. They were the gamblers and bookmakers closest to Battista. We Finally Have Details On How Exactly Disgraced Ref Tim Donaghy Fixed Since he was now affiliated with PlayASAP, Ruggieri was running all the bets that he booked back home, including Concannon's, through the PlayASAP website. ", Weiss disputes that; he told me his tipster wasn't affiliated with the NBA "as far as I know." He was always locked in a room, on the phone.". IT WASN'T JUST Donaghy who tried to convince the FBI that he didn't fix games. According to what we've observed after being released from Metropolitan Detention Center-Brooklyn, New York, James "Jimmy" Battista has returned home to the state of Pennsylvania and lives an extremely private life. Yet the number of games reviewed by Pedowitz's group of NBA employees was only 17. I asked. Griffin became so acutely and repeatedly aware that the former ref was full of fabrication and fiction that hed relegate Donaghy to the disingenuous shadows of his own imagination. He had to use the bathroom, he said, and motioned for Martino to please come along. Read More: How Much Did Tim Donaghy Earn From Each Bet? Powered by WordPress.com VIP. 'UNTOLD: Operation Flagrant Foul' Netflix Review: Stream It or Skip It? Netflix, to me, is the next iteration of that., Donaghy published a book in June 2010, nine months before Gaming.. In 2013, Athanas was indicted as part of a federal sports-betting case that was unrelated to Donaghy. It is likely Tim did not know just how influential Jimmy had become, or how Battistas words and deeds now affected bettors and bookies worldwide..
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