It was the biggest scandal in American sports history, but it quickly faded from the headlines. Litvin's tone was urgent. "I said to him, 'Listen, don't tell me that you have some independent, decision-making ability in your mind's computer that's going to be unbiased, because that's not going to f---ing happen. Ill never understand that., Battista, who called Donaghy a pathological liar with bottomless greed, told Griffin, I knew that Timmys demand for money far exceeded his ability to get it. There will almost always be an imbalance of calls. Donaghy had Martino arrange the Marriott rendezvous. Who Is Jimmy Battista? Im not nave, Griffin said. And then one afternoon the case agent came into my office. Battista called him a strange, mean-spirited guy.. But no. His messaging was clear: Donaghy was a rogue. Veteran reporter who broke the Donaghy story for the New York Post. A few weeks later, four days after the Post story broke, David Stern gave his first news conference. But while Donaghy would admit to betting on his own games in his plea agreement, he would not admit to fixing games. They played 18 holes four or five days a week. Getty Images LAS VEGAS By January 2007, Jimmy Battista's NBA bets had attracted the attention of the world's heavyweight gamblers, who had connected referee Tim Donaghy to that action. "He played golf and gambled.". Donaghy faced 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. "I was like a pot smoker moving up to cocaine.". Joe Vito cannot speak to that today; he was busted in 2012 at age 63 for illegal bookmaking in an unrelated federal case. Reportedly born in 1966, Jimmy Battista is 56 years old in 2022. They just march on, say whatever they want, anyway. Simply put, to show that Donaghy fixed games would suggest that it's easier for gamblers to manipulate games than any sports league would want to admit. The next night, the trio convened at Martinos house to set terms. Thousands of pages of court documents and investigative records were scrutinized. And if you exclude two split-foul calls -- the same foul called by two refs simultaneously and credited to both -- the P value for Donaghy's calls in that set of games was 0.041, or 4.1 percent. You don't want anyone "from New York" coming to your house, Battista told him. 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. According to Battista, though, it was Donaghy who reached out, asking for a meeting. According to statements Donaghy made to federal law enforcement, Battista's deal was effectively an act of extortion. Just before tip-off, Battista bet $60,000 on Boston, bumping the line to 3.5 points. Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul is available to stream now exclusively on Netflix. But he'd remained close friends after high school with both Donaghy and Battista, who, in turn, were never that close with each other. He'd acted alone. In this game, the second after the marriage with Battista, Donaghy called five straight fouls on New Jersey in the fourth quarter when the spread was in doubt. NBA commissioner at the time of the scandal. Had Battista gone to trial, Donaghys character would have come under immense scrutiny. Or, actually, it was the moral of this story. In 2008, former NBA referee Tim Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in prison. I can imagine TV producers were looking for an on-air mix-up. White Sox win! The Feds' job, on this one, was done. We had a big bet on every f---ing game.". The notes taken by the agents during these interviews have a mantra-like similarity: "recalled feeling 'shocked' when he learned about Donaghy did not discuss this matter with other referees" "described his initial reaction as 'surprised' and 'shocked,' and stated that he did not discuss this matter with any other referees" "described Donaghy as a very accurate referee with few missed calls" "did not hear other refs discuss TD thought he was a good ref. Moreover, it was indicated he made $20 to $30 million in total for the mob families. A grand jury in the case had been convened as early as February, according to FBI documents, and on May 30, Tommy Martino testified before it. Jimmy Battista, nickname "The Sheep," is a professional gambler. ", 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? One expert offers tips to brew the perfect cup at home. How huge? In any case, Ruggieri before long decided to shut the whole thing down. IT REMAINS ONE of the most tantalizing questions in all of American professional sport: Does game-fixing still exist? Scala reached the FBI's mandatory retirement age in 2008 and is now a private detective based on Long Island. They had possibly just stumbled on the ultimate edge. Nunn, then the director of NBA officials, was in town for the NBA summer league games held annually among the casinos, where referee candidates from the minors are assessed for possible promotion to the Show. Every foul call was logged, the resulting data analyzed, along with betting-market line-movement histories for every game Donaghy reffed that season. In his endeavors, Battista had a sometime assistant, another high school chum, Tommy Martino, who acted as a liaison in the Donaghy scheme. Jimmy was ordered to spend 15 months in federal prison. No one realizes its a scam. But Battista refused to squeal on Donaghy. Then he hung up. They checked the games. The important comparison is to the team that received the greater amount of betting dollars. When Donaghy became an NBA ref, that continued, sometimes with hookers. AND THEN THERE was a former friend of Donaghy's named Aron Kulle, who recalled the time Donaghy came to his office in Sarasota in a state of high anxiety. ", 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. "If I thought we were going to get caught, then I'd like to think I wouldn't have ever done it," Donaghy said. Their sneakers squeaked on the hardwood. Holy s---! The FBI investigated the disgraced refs claims of other NBA officials involvement, with negative results. He was what's known as a mover. In 2015, Mastronardo had a stroke and died in prison. I refuse to talk about him." Griffin has dogged determination. In our case, it means there's just a 4.1 percent chance that an unbiased ref would have randomly made the calls that Tim Donaghy did during his crooked run. Yet the number of games reviewed by Pedowitz's group of NBA employees was only 17. but my gambling instincts were taking over, and I was perversely excited.. The gambler described the conversation with Donaghy to me on the condition that I not use his name in the story. He has been working on something big, as Tom Petty sang, for 10 years, and its near-future publication will be a bombshell. There was golfing but also drinking and gambling. 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. Had Nunn heard anything about Donaghy's resignation? An interesting part of the Untold: Vol. Although Jimmy first came across Tim while they were both attending Cardinal OHara High School in Springfield, Pennsylvania, it wasnt until years later that they even became acquaintances. "His father is an outstanding man," Rush, now retired, says today. Gerry Donaghy, his father, for a long time wore stripes at the highest levels of NCAA men's basketball. What is his Net Worth? And: You don't want the NBA to find out about what you've been doing with Concannon. The one thing we do know for sure, though, is he has a family and children, so he might just be focusing on caring for and spending quality time with them these days. Thats what bothers me. Larry Pedowitz Favored by 6, the visiting Wizards covering Battista on March 15 confessing to his wife that he'd lost $7 million of his clients' money Battista on March 16 strung out and sleepless at Martino's house and surrounded suddenly by almost his entire immediate family. In other words, Donaghy's track record of making calls that favored his bet was 23-3-4. In-season, it is demanding, tiring, high stress. That was obvious. Martino also penned a book in 2019. Scala's squad went to work. Because he was a sometime member of the same golfing circle back home, Ruggieri knew that Concannon and NBA ref Tim Donaghy were friends. The data chronicle price fluctuations. Kim Donaghy Litvin then filled him in on the worst of it and told him there was an ongoing investigation, instructing him to say nothing about any of it to anyone. [3] Served as one of Battista's biggest "outs" for bets on Donaghy games. Battista and Donaghy were never to speak directly. In Donaghy's many conversations with the Feds through these weeks, he had begun pointing fingers and making allegations about other referees -- other refs who may have been corrupt. "There wasn't no need to," Battista has told friends. "Uh, no.") The Celtics won 101-81. Martino would then relay the pick to Battista. The play claims that his strict, god-fearing family caused him to rebel when he was younger, but he wound up going out with the wrong crowd. Because this edge, this treasure, was in danger of evaporating, Battista had decided that he needed to assume direct control over the referee. Supervisor of the FBI probe. Joseph "Joe Vito" Mastronardo Battista envisioned the arrangement lasting for 20 years. It's impossible,'" Scala says. According to Scala, his and the FBI's position has always been that Donaghy's deals with Concannon and Battista irrevocably "tainted" his capacity for officiating, even if only subconsciously. Namely, they were going to wire up Donaghy so he could get other allegedly corrupted NBA referees to incriminate themselves. According to a court document, Donaghy and Concannon placed their first bet on a game Donaghy was refereeing in March 2003 -- more than four years and four NBA seasons before he was caught. Why? The person wanted to deliver a message about Weiss' more critical reporting on the scandal. "We were prepared to do some undercover things to corroborate Donaghy's story," Scala says. "Then you gotta cover the f---ing spread." He had the artwork. Move along. 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. On Feb. 22, 2019, the NBA issued a statement in response to the ESPN story on the Donaghy scandal: "The Tim Donaghy matter concluded over a decade ago with a full investigation by the federal government, Donaghy's termination from the NBA, and his conviction for criminal acts. This was a few years after Donaghy's release from prison. It cost Griffin to produce that book. I believe this guy was almost soulless.. When I visited her in Sarasota not long ago, at the office where she works, she made it clear the divorce was a long time coming. A play that had to be called one way and that [Donaghy] called the other way. That's why, according to someone close to both men, Battista had no choice but to apprise Mastronardo of the Donaghy situation, to tell Joe Vito that this ref was picking sides in his own games-and, most likely, using his whistle to help the bet win. By June 15, Donaghy was sitting inside the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York in downtown Brooklyn, naming names and making a statement. The Celtics, favored by 2.5 points, went on to win in a blowout. Donaghy, in August 2007, and Martino, in April 2008, would plead guilty to two charges: conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to transmit gambling information. To Scala, Stern seemed mostly upset that the NBA's in-house security people had failed to discover Donaghy's wrongdoing before the FBI. Accusations, innuendo and lies come from a cast of lawyers and characters, including Donaghy's co-conspirators Tommy Martino and Jimmy Battista, telling a story that many have long ago wanted to . And so, controlling for blowouts by removing those games from the ledger, what we ultimately found was this: Donaghy favored the side that attracted more betting dollars in 23 of those 30 competitive games, or 77 percent of the time. But stomping out a Mafia profit center was. Tommy Martino was tight with both Donaghy and Battista. And, if he did, what was his method? " And still it went on Donaghy in Dallas on Jan. 30 calling one foul against the home team and 12 against Seattle, including six straight against the Sonics when the margin was 13 or fewer. I didn't find it.". They were now entering the sixth week of the scheme -- what you might call a sustained period of time. Jimmy "the Sheep" Battista & NBA Revelations In "Gaming The Game". He staffed it with working-class Delco kids ambitious to earn. To discuss Donaghy with more than a dozen of them now is to sense that their silence has more to do with the fact that they hate the guy. What did he see? Premier underground bookmaker, now deceased, who, according to sources, profited from the scheme. (The last time he was arrested, the police dug up his yard and found sections of PVC pipe buried there. 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 . The FBI started trying . In four games, he called the game neutrally, 50-50. The best movers spend years compiling vast networks of clients and "outs," or counterparties, with whom the movers can trade. "If you looked at the stats," said one gambler in The Office at the time, "you could see he was calling more fouls on the team he bet against and less fouls on the team he bet on. Word about Donaghy had permeated the market, followers following followers. Furthermore, exceedingly large price jumps or plunges, or even the timing of certain price moves, could signal the trading strategies of a gambling syndicate. According to Martino and Battista, after such wagering was complete, Battista, via Martino, would then inform Donaghy of the spread he needed to cover. Netflix's Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul revisits . It was his first pick for Battista. That is incorrect. They were the real moneymakers of the Donaghy scheme. Still, in Scala's telling, the FBI eventually just had to move on. He told me Monday that those producers called him, they talked for maybe 90 minutes and Griffin provided relevant notes and potential lines of inquiry. 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. Yeah, I did. "No one wants to talk about that. Now there's a Netflix documentary on the subject, . One of them was a man nicknamed Tiger. That's the bottom line. Battista knew Donaghy in high school, and he played football with Donaghy's brother, Jimmy. And so, in the end, on the question of whether Donaghy fixed, Pedowitz upheld the findings of the U.S. Attorney's Office -- which never charged him with such crimes. In that moment -- like the many people before him who'd expanded and abetted the scheme and profited from it -- Aron Kulle sensed opportunity. "I don't like to talk in terms of coulda, woulda, shoulda, but if the Post story didn't come out, [Donaghy] would have worn a wire, and I don't know where it would have gone. Before joining the NBA, he worked as a referee for high school basketball games and for the minor league CBA. Or "influence" or "manipulate" or in any way discussed the mechanics of fixing. Because that's how you get in trouble. "He started betting it with everybody and moving the lines like crazy. An NBA referee, according to the informant, was "in the pocket" of some people in the sports-gambling underworld. Close friends with the referee since they were kids, Martino had a day job as an IT guy at JPMorgan. "Based on our review, and with the information we have available, we are unable to contradict the government's conclusion. Donaghy and Concannon are betting on Donaghy's games -- and making a goddamn killing. Donaghy's story is that he bet on all kinds of things for years with his buddy, including NBA games. Large sums but, if handled deftly, not large enough to alert the broader market that something screwy might be going on. They'd studied his wagers. "He gets so pale sometimes, he turns yellow, I swear to god," Martino told me. NBA commissioner David Stern kept Donaghy from working the second round of the 2005 playoffs because of the sheer volume (Sterns words) of such reports. Kulle got up, crossed the room and closed the blinds. Normally this meant making a few "head fake" bets. ", The Celtics played the 76ers the night after the Marriott meeting. "He said he'd pick on the big center, or the most valuable player of each team, and he'd try to get them in foul trouble. And then there's the offseason. T. Rush, Joey Crawford, Steve Javie, Tom Washington, Mark Wunderlich, Duke Callahan, Ed Malloy, Mark Lindsay, Aaron Smith, Tim Donaghy -- all NBA referees current, retired, dead or (in the last case) disgraced, all born and/or raised in the environs of Philadelphia. Veteran NBA referee and Nunn's immediate predecessor as director of officials. Each of the city's famous Five Families -- Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino -- has a dedicated FBI unit investigating it full time, and Scala was the boss of the one focused on the Gambinos. James "Jimmy" Ba . But there is much evidence to suggest the opposite. But the gig is well-paid -- even rookies in 2007 could make six figures. He was already thinking, How can I get a piece of this action? Suburban Philadelphia insurance salesman and friend of Donaghy who, in spring 2003, partnered with Donaghy to bet on NBA games that the referee was working. Griffins impressive work is again relevant because on Aug. 30, Netflix is scheduled to air Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul, about the scandal. ", But Scala, the FBI agent who pursued the case, has doubts. The scandal architect, Battista was addicted to various pills and cocaine, yet he was the straight-shooter, as reams of evidence and others corroborated his most-minute details. ", Scala, at the time, was livid. His picks were winning at an 88 percent clip, totally unheard of in sports betting for any sustained period of time. Vercher asked him why. 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. Scala won't say whether he believes the NBA leaked the story. It was January 2007. Blessed with the right connections, and after four years officiating in the CBA, the NBA's minor league, he was called up to the majors in 1994. At the same time, at the request of the NBA, former prosecutor Larry Pedowitz conducted an independent investigation of Donaghy's misconduct and issued publicly a 133-page report. The bribe was only two dimes, $2,000 per game -- an outrageous bargain. Conspiracy theories about corrupted refs have dogged the league for decades. Dont forget that I got involved with this not realizing Donaghys story is [b.s. This scandal involved two childhood friends, Jimmy Battista, the gambler, and Tommy Martino, the go-between, who carried the money and information between Donaghy and Battista. "But they all had a piece of the pizza." They are a form of broker that helps sports bettors by placing wagers on their client's behalf. 2 documentary Operation Flagrant Foul, on the 2007 gambling scandal centered on former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, is how it's not just about Donaghy. If there is a cradle of basketball refereeing, it is here. 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. Things may have been different. The Feds wanted to talk to me and go against him, but I wouldnt, Battista told Griffin. Battista would cut a deal, pleading guilty in April 2008 only to the charge of transmission of gambling information. "The only mechanics, he had in his hand. The guy's career was ruined and his life in shambles. Based in an anonymous office building in Kew Gardens, Queens, Scala and his agents had spent years assembling a network of informants inside the gang. In the early 2000s, the sports-betting world was undergoing its own equivalent of a dot-com boom. Gambler, bookmaker and sometime partner of Battista and the Animals betting office who took over the Donaghy scheme after Battista went to rehab but quickly ended the operation. Nothing to see here. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. FAQ: How will legal gambling change the NBA and the way we watch it? If Donaghy talked about Chuck, bet the home side. 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. According to multiple sources, Battista first began moving bets for Athanas in 2005. "I was warned," Weiss told me, "that if I stumbled, Stern would do anything he could to crush me. Barricade Books, his publisher, had issues. . A month or so back, not long before Christmas, he'd done something audacious: He'd sat down and cut a deal with an NBA referee. But for many in and around the league, suspicions have remained that the full story has not been told, that what really happened has been suppressed. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. By most accounts, Tony "Tiger" Rufo is no longer a gambler. He was 27 years old. He already knew of the NBA referees gambling issue owing to his profession, and they soon somehow agreed to work together for some extra cash Tim would give him picks, and hed run with it. His attorneys, he told her, had advised him not to. The story examines Donaghy's relationships with professional gambler Jimmy Battista and Tommy Martino (the intermediary between Donaghy and Battista), the involvement of Italian-American crime families in the scheme, and the FBI's failed efforts to "flip" Battista into a cooperating witness. "Nobody picked winners . He'd been raptly listening to the referee's story -- the gambling, the cash, the secrecy, the corruption, the endless search by human beings to gain an edge, the gross opportunism that seemed almost contagious, the almost shockingly easy fixing of a major American sport -- but now there was one big thing on Kulle's mind, and it wasn't the moral of the story. Crank then calculated the P value for just Donaghy's calls for the entirety of the season in question. I have incredibly low expectations for whatever they produce, Griffin said by phone from Charleston, South Carolina. It got out to Battista that I'm giving games to Jack! Mendy Rudolph, Yogi Strom, Jake O'Donnell, Billy Oakes, Ed. The new material that ESPN has assembled to support its own conclusion that Donaghy manipulated games is not strong and adds little to the existing record. Short of an outright confession, how could you prove that Donaghy had fixed the games anyway? One of them was the man that his ex-wife Kim Donaghy described as his forever "partner in crime" -Thomas "Tommy" Martino. 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. His body turned numb. The Celtics were favored by 1.5 points. When I asked, she said she never counted the money, never confronted him about its existence. Murray Weiss The ESPN Article attempts to revive this old story. Too many invested observers -- referee supervisors, coaches, players, owners, media, fans -- would be too quick to complain if they saw something fishy, the NBA argued. But she would keep finding such rolls in his pockets as the years went on. When they departed, Battista asked Donaghy whom he liked the next night, when the 76ers were playing host to the Celtics in a game Donaghy would officiate. With a team of four young lawyers, Pedowitz took a little over a year to conduct the probe and write up the findings in a 133-page report. And so it is that May's Supreme Court decision demands a review of the Donaghy affair. None of them says anymore that Donaghy "was a good ref. For that reason, he had a lot of cash on hand. "You've got to arrange a meeting with Donaghy," Battista said. Battista and Martino were tight, and they drove to the Marriott at Philadelphia International Airport for an exploratory meeting with Donaghy on Dec. 12, 2006. In April 2007, a few days after Battista checked out of rehab for drug abuse, FBI special agents Paul Harris and Gerard Conrad knocked for the first time on Battista's door. It is normal, of course, for a referee to call more fouls against one team than the other. The NBA did too. 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.. White-collar criminal defense attorney who led the NBA-commissioned outside investigation into the Donaghy affair. (When I contacted Weiss, who now works as a producer for CBS News' 48 Hours, he said he didn't recall this conversation.) I cant say one nice thing about him. In the runup to the 2024 election, the Sun-Times, WBEZ and the Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago will be collaborating on a project to educate our audience about the threat to our democracy and how we can form a more perfect union., Tim Donaghy returns to spotlight in Netflix documentary but somethings missing, Bears draft review: Pieces in place for Justin Fields, White Sox win! Tim Donaghy, 55, was born in Pennsylvania on 7 January 1967 and worked in the NBA from 1994-2007. IT WOULD NOT be the only time Tim Donaghy would come clean. Its not like I was laughing at his calls if they helped us, or pissed at his calls if they hurt us. According to the FBI's investigation files, obtained in an FOIA request, some referees had to be served with subpoenas before they would talk to the Feds. What does it mean to "fix" a game? Oakes was Tim Donaghy's uncle. In high school, during a trip to the Jersey Shore, Donaghy got drunk and scavenged through neighbors homes, stealing items. Two years of reporting later, the story can now be told: This is the definitive account of how Tim Donaghy conspired to fix NBA games -- and how, in so doing, he unwittingly enriched an array of gamblers to the tune of likely hundreds of millions of dollars. Battista had since decided to set up shop on his own as a bet broker. According to the report, only one of those 17 games, Pistons at Nets on Dec. 16, 2006, "raised concerns that Donaghy's calls and substantial errors might have been aimed at favoring Detroit (which covered the point spread)." Lamell McMorris served as the lead negotiator for the referees' union in its collective bargaining with the league. There had to be a pattern. Money drops and cash settlements in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania; in New York City; in Las Vegas; in San Francisco. Battista had such a network. Battista said Donaghy and Martino were close in high school because both liked to smoke pot. He would start before dawn with the enormously liquid Asian betting markets, an amorphous group of black- and gray-market internet sportsbooks based in places like Manila and Kuala Lumpur. "I started thinking -- or should I say, rationalizing: S---, everyone on the staff bets," he wrote. They now had one job: Do not lose the edge by letting the information leak. But that was the company line.". Because then "you gotta call a lot of fouls," Martino said. And now, back to your regularly scheduled chants, Kahleah Copper is more than comfortable in the drivers seat for the Sky, Andrew Vaughn, White Sox end 10-game skid with 12-9 comeback win over Rays, What the Cubs April performance says about their identity, Shoplifter stabs Loop Target employee, leading to temporary store closure, The Edgar haircut is one more thing kids, parents can disagree on, Dear Abby: When I travel, friend checking my home also snoops through my things, Coffee machine broken?
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