← Pablo Torre Finds Out
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- [00:00]
Pablo Torre
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Toure, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
- [00:06]
Sugar Shane Hennin
So that's why I'm saying if anybody thinks that sports betting, you got to just understand there's going to be highs.
- [00:11]
Pablo Torre
And there's going to be lows right after this ad.
- [00:17]
US Marines Advertisement Voice
The fight for our future starts with belief in our nation and its promise in our future and its potential. Together, we answer America's call to win. We are Marines. We were made for this.
- [00:33]
DSW Advertisement Voice
Come to DSW for the shoes, Stay for the fun. Because let's be honest, if shoe shopping isn't fun, are you even doing it right? So go ahead, try something new. Try something different, good different. Try something that feels like you. You know, the real you. And then definitely brag about it later. Because at dsw, you've got unlimited freedom to play with sneakers, boots and everything in between. For every style, mood and occasion, you'll definitely find shoes to get you and at prices that get your budget. DSW let us surprise you.
- [01:04]
Pablo Torre
ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
- [01:12]
DSW Advertisement Voice
Hey hoops fans, the new NBA season is here and the Athletic NBA Daily is your daily dose of basketball breakfast. Join me Dave DeFore, Zena Kaeda and Esperaheni Monday through Friday, and Andrew Schlecht and Alex Spears on Saturday for the freshest stories, the hottest takes, and all the highlights from around the nb, all before you finish your first cup of coffee. Whether it's a sizzling performance, a spicy trade rumor, or some smooth stat lines, we'll serve it piping hot and ready for you. So check out the Athletic NBA Daily on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:48]
Pablo Torre
ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com foreign I feel like you're either about to arrest me as a member of immigration control or you are very, very well prepared for this specific episode.
- [02:13]
Amin Elhassan
If it were the former, I would also have like a mask covering my face right here. You know, like what we wore during the pandemic, a lack and alas, I'm just ready for a poker game.
- [02:24]
Pablo Torre
I mean, I don't even have time to do the nonsense with you because a I have a montage I'm about to press play on and B this has to do with the Department of Justice, which you might have heard about last week.
- [02:40]
Dave DeFore
All right, we're turning to the breaking.
- [02:41]
Pablo Torre
News out of the NBA sprawling FBI probe into Mafia linked gambling and Sports rigging schemes are sending shock waves across the NBA and the United States. The FBI arresting a coach in Portland as well as current and former players. This is the intro trading saga for the NBA. That's what this is. That's why we are going to take heat. Trump is coming. Big night for the NBA when beyond put on a show that has now been smeared because we're talking about this story. Okay. It was really hard to pick which clips would go into that montage.
- [03:14]
Amin Elhassan
There was a lot, so many to pick from. And yet there's always this incredible desire in me to nitpick, whether it's Cash Patel saying Inshreider trading or Stephen A. Smith saying Wembiana.
- [03:29]
Pablo Torre
I think I also have to just nitpick and point out that in fact this investigation, which Cash Patel is declaring behind that podium, it did start underneath the Biden administration like years ago. And also I understand why these charges may have blindsided lots of people inside both the league office here in New York City as well as various television studios all around the country. But we were not blindsided. Actually, we here at Pablo Tori finds out. Amin we spoke to more than 20 sources for this episode we're here to do today from the top of the NBA world to the gambling underworld as well, to the federal courthouses here in the city, to Capitol Hill in D.C. and what they told us is the following quote, doing anything better than Kash Patel is not a badge of honor. But you guys are even staying ahead of that guy, end quote.
- [04:23]
Amin Elhassan
I urge everyone to go back to listen to our episode from July, July, a lot about Malik Beasley. But many of the names that popped up in that episode were very familiar ones that we saw in the indictments that were announced last week.
- [04:41]
Pablo Torre
What are the code names of the two federal investigations that resulted in these two indictments?
- [04:47]
Amin Elhassan
I hate this more than anything because I know there's someone whose job it is to think of stupid puns that they're going to name their operations after. These were called Operation Royal Flush and also Operation Nothing But Bet.
- [05:06]
Pablo Torre
Yes, that's right. Operation Royal Flush alleges a multi million dollar fraud scheme to rig illegal poker games using an elaborate setup involving everything from rigged shuffling machines to to decoy cell phones, to X ray poker tables, to hand signals, to special contact lenses and sunglasses not unlike the ones you're wearing right now that can read these pre marked cards, which is all stuff that apparently poker pros have become hip to. But the real headline here, I mean, is that two former NBA players, current Blazers head Coach Chauncey Billups and former Cavs and Lakers assistant Damon Jones were two of the 31 defendants, alongside several members allegedly of which criminal enterprise Amin.
- [05:55]
Amin Elhassan
Laosa Nostra.
- [05:57]
Pablo Torre
Laosa Nostra.
- [05:59]
Amin Elhassan
This thing of ours.
- [06:00]
Pablo Torre
This thing of ours. And if you go down the full list of defendants, by the way, you do see guys with nicknames like Flappy and Spanish, G and Albanian Bruce and Black Tony and Black Rob.
- [06:13]
Amin Elhassan
For the record, you got to differentiate, because if you have multiple Tonys, you got to say which Tony we talking about. Black Tony. Ah, got it.
- [06:21]
Pablo Torre
And what the federal indictment also wants to make clear, allegedly, is that Chauncey Billups was not only this whale who attracted poker pros to the table under the guise that a famous multi millionaire athlete would be easy prey. Chauncey Billups was also in on the rigging, according to the indictment, which is something that I discussed with somebody who has played poker personally with Chauncey Billups before and who agreed to talk to us if we did that thing where we modulate their voice.
- [06:50]
Anonymous Poker Source
I Remember back in April 2019, I got word from different people in poker that there was this game that was going to be happening in LA and in Vegas, and it was run around Kevin Garnett and Chauncey Billups. And I'm like, how is this game even happening? And I'm like, this makes no sense. Like, those guys don't play poker. Like, it's weird, right? And a friend of mine who's a really, really good poker player who's playing in the game, I remember, told me that day about this hand that he played with Chauncey. And he said it was just super weird. And it was like some really big pot, maybe $200,000 or somewhere in that range where Chauncey Billups just, like, put all the money in with a gut shot draw, which is just like a really weak hand. And he hit the card on the river and ended up winning a huge pot. And so immediately his reaction was like, it's weird. Like, I don't understand this hand. Like, how can he call? Like what? Like, I don't understand what's going on in the hand.
- [07:55]
Pablo Torre
And I mean, this is where I just got to jump in to clarify two quick things. First, a source close to Kevin Garnett told me Garnett did in fact play in a 2019 poker game in Los Angeles link the same network of people indicted by federal prosecutors here. But Garnett initially apparently thought he was going to a, quote, afterparty, not a poker game, and that he chose to leave the game early. Garnett, the source goes on to say, has not yet been contacted by the FETs. So, just to be clear here, Garnett was used to advertise the game as a whale, but nothing I have seen to date suggests that he played the same role as his old friend and teammates in Minnesota, Chauncey Billups. But the poker of this all, I mean, are you a poker guy? Do you play poker?
- [08:38]
Amin Elhassan
No, but I play one on tv.
- [08:39]
Pablo Torre
Yeah, you do have the whole, like, Chris Money maker ass sunglasses on. Yeah, and I'm not either, by the way. I'm not a poker guy either. But the other thing that I did obtain here, the second thing, is the specific hand that Chauncey Billups played that my poker source was describing, and we're going to show it on our YouTube channel for all the degenerates out there. But all you need to know for the time being is that on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the most suspicious, multiple poker experts laughingly describe Billup's decision making in this series of decisions as a 10. Quote, it's someone who knows what the river is going to be, end quote, meaning that last card that decided the whole thing, which would be difficult, I mean, of course, unless Chauncey Billups was allegedly using a rigged shuffling machine in April 2019, as this indictment specifically alleges.
- [09:31]
Amin Elhassan
Chauncey Billups in Operation Royal Flush is being charged with basically being the guy who is at face card. Rich people are like, ooh, I want to play cards with Chauncey Billups. And they'll go and they'll play with him, not knowing that the game is rigged and that he knows the game is rigged. He is honey to attract all of these bees.
- [09:55]
Pablo Torre
And Chauncey's lawyer, by the way, to be very clear about it, has said, quote, he will fight these allegations and that he would not jeopardize, quote, his legacy's reputation and his freedom for anything, let alone a card game. But I do just need to jump into our conversation with our friend Amin Elhassan, the former basketball operations executive with the the Phoenix Suns, because something else you should know is that Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones and Kevin Garnett are not the only former NBA players who were marketed as whales by the defendants indicted by the federal government, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of that April 2019 game in Vegas that we've been discussing here, the same one where Billups was allegedly profiting off of that extremely suspicious hand, and that Rigged shuffling machine. Another face card in attendance was current Los Angeles Clippers head coach Ty Liu, who was at the time an assistant coach for the Clippers. Now, sources say that Lou did not play at the same table as Chauncey Billups, the man Lou recently called his best friend, and also the man whom Lou would hire as a Clippers assistant himself the very next year, 2020, once Lou got his current head job. But an open secret around the NBA is that Tyloo, who lives in Vegas in the off season, also loves poker and is often seen at what is considered the nexus of the NBA poker world, the Aria High Limit Bar, often alongside another retired NBA player whom Lou had separately hired to his coaching staff in Cleveland, and who has called Lou his best friend, Damon Jones. Which makes for, you know, just one hell of a best friend triangle. In fact, In June of 2024, both Ty Lue and Damon Jones sat next to each other on the rail, the poker equivalent of courtside at a playoff game, to watch another friend of theirs compete at the World Series of Poker, as seen on the broadcast of that event. T. Looski.
- [12:18]
Anonymous Poker Source
Come on, man.
- [12:20]
Amin Elhassan
T. Lewski. Come on, man. West side rolling die time. What's your number? What's your number? What's your number?
- [12:26]
DSW Advertisement Voice
T. Lewis Never fail.
- [12:27]
Amin Elhassan
What's your number? T. Lewski.
- [12:32]
Pablo Torre
Last week we here at Pablo Torre finds out asked Clippers PR about Lou's attendance at that allegedly rigged game in Vegas in April 2019, the same one with Billups that was mentioned in the federal indictment. And the Clippers did not respond. But going back to that same game in question, eventually my anonymous poker playing source did hear that something was up.
- [13:05]
Anonymous Poker Source
A year later, you know, my friend came back to me and said, for sure, like, that game was cheated. And then other people had heard about that in Vegas, so. So there was word around the streets that, you know, this game was allegedly cheated, especially because there's some shady people involved running the operation.
- [13:22]
Pablo Torre
So, I mean, in a nutshell, that is just a taste of the horrifically named Operation Royal Flush, which is further confirmed by a review of my sources, contemporaneous text messages from the time related to that poker hand. But the other federal investigation operation, Nothing But Bet, which is arguably even worse as a name, it does something more, right, because it names current Heat guard Terry Rozier and once again, Damon Jones. And as two of the six listed defendants, all of whom the federal government has charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy for their alleged roles in a scheme to use inside information provided by NBA players and coaches about players ranging from Terry Roger to apparently LeBron James and Damen Lillard. The latter info coming allegedly from a conspicuously thinly veiled co conspirator.
- [14:15]
Amin Elhassan
I mean, co conspirator number eight, an individual whose identity is known to the grand jury, was a resident of Oregon. Co conspirator number eight was an NBA player from approximately 1997 through 2014 and an NBA coach since at least 2021. Ladies and gentlemen, one guy in league history fits that description. It's Chauncey Billups.
- [14:40]
Pablo Torre
It's kind of like they said. And his name is C. Billups. No, wait, Chauncey B. The noted hall of Famer. And I appreciate you, by the way, cleaning up the DOJ's typo. They forgot to put the of of in resident of Oregon. Just as a matter of, you know, just pointing out some stuff here as a journalist and what's weird about some of the framing here, but how a bunch of mainstream media and even some of the smartest people in the NBA, how they've been framing the whole cluster, is that they have been saying this is two non intersecting parallel operations. They are two separate operations. But to me, I mean, what we learned three months ago was that the rig poker scandal does have some touch points at the roots of it with the NBA betting scandal. And the reason I say that is because the character we wound up reporting on three months ago, the focus of our July episode was who and why.
- [15:43]
Amin Elhassan
Back in July, as we're going through the Malik Beasley case, we discovered a character named Moose, NBA, various aliases, obviously changing his Twitter handles from year to year after he got banned and blocked one way or another. And Moose, as it turns out, was the cousin of one Amar Awade, who you might recognize that name from the indictments that came down last week.
- [16:10]
Pablo Torre
So just to briefly recap here, in January 2025, this was four months before the news of the federal government's still ongoing investigation into Pistons guard Malik Beasley. Now former Pistons guard Malik Beasley was broken. X User Free Moose underscore NBA predicted that Malik Beasley would be the next NBA gambling scandal. Quote, first was Jonte, then was Rogier. Next you'll hear about M Star, star, star star B Star star star star star. Otherwise known again in that very unsubtle way as Malik Beasley.
- [16:47]
Amin Elhassan
Might as well work for the doj.
- [16:48]
Pablo Torre
I know we're unmasking everybody today, but the thing we found out in that rabbit hole of an episode is that yes, Moose's Close friend and fellow die hard Knicks fan and cousin is a person of interest. Yes. By the name of Amar Awade. Even though, by the way, Moose previously denied that very fact to our friend Tom Haberstrough in a July interview that went from extremely talkative to suddenly extremely strained. Are you friends with or do you know, Amar Awade?
- [17:20]
Anonymous Poker Source
No.
- [17:22]
Pablo Torre
No. Okay. Because I saw that you're Facebook friends with Amar, and so I figured maybe that was somehow you could. You were associated with him.
- [17:36]
Anonymous Poker Source
No.
- [17:37]
Amin Elhassan
He's a very boastful person, Moose. NBA was. And as soon as you. You heard it, as soon as that name came out, the loquacious Moose all of a sudden turns mute.
- [17:51]
Pablo Torre
Because what he knows and what you now know as a listener to this show is that Amar Awadeh is not merely related to Moose. Amar Awade was also a charter member. Amin. Of the infamous Jonte Porter group chat, which is the wellspring, I'm here to argue, from which this entire saga actually originates. And for those who don't remember, this is the group chat where Jonte Porter, who at the time was an obscure Raptors backup, facing down gambling debt, too. Among others, Amar Awade told the chat he was gonna pull himself out of specific NBA games early, therefore allowing the chat to win money by placing these prop bets on Porter's unders, meaning his underperformance relative to the lines set by gambling operators in Las Vegas that people were gambling on. And in fact, in a photo that we're gonna show on screen here, you can see Amar Awade in the red hoodie on the left. This is the photo from the exact day that the group chat was allegedly working together to place bets on Jonte Porter. This was taken to mean at the illustrious Resorts casino in Atlantic City. And what you should also know is that before Jonte Porter got arrested last year, according to a court document from June, he had texted this same group chat, these same guys, about, quote, deleting all the stuff from their cell phones and warning them also that they, quote, might just get hit with a RICO. End quote.
- [19:22]
Amin Elhassan
Criminal mastermind. Mr. Porter is not.
- [19:26]
Pablo Torre
Those texts to me were sent in April of 2024. Shantay Porter got banned for life from the NBA later that same month. And less than a week after that, we then found video of Amar Awade, this time not wearing the red hoodie in that photo, but wearing something else, sitting where?
- [19:45]
Amin Elhassan
Baseline at a Knicks Sixers game in Madison Square Garden, I believe, in close proximity to Carmelo Anthony.
- [19:53]
Pablo Torre
Yes, he did dap up Melo, but Amar Awade, for the record, did plead not guilty to wire fraud conspiracy back in December, and he did have his next court date rescheduled after delay and delay and delay until next week. But last week, I mean, catching everybody up here, we very curiously did not find Amar Awade's name in the indictment for Operation Nothing But Bet, the NBA gambling side. But we did find him all over Operation Royal Flush, the whole rig poker game investigation we talked about. So could you please read from that indictment.
- [20:34]
Amin Elhassan
The defendant, Amar Awadeh, also known as Flapper Poker and Flappy, was a resident of Brooklyn, New York, an associate of the Gambino crime family and a member of the cheating teams AWA Day, was an organizer of the Washington Place game and with others, organized rigged games at the Washington Place game, among other places.
- [20:59]
Pablo Torre
Now, I don't know what it's like for you to discover that, oh, we've been, we've been talking about the Gambino crime family on the podcast. But that was a thing that I sat up straight a bit when I read because in our previous episode, you may recall that I talked to someone who personally played in multiple private poker games in Manhattan with Amar Flapper Poker Awade. And this person said to me that Flappy was texting people to come to his poker games even after Amar Awade was very publicly identified as involved in the whole Jonte Porter NBA betting scandal. And yet the figure we're here to focus on in this episode is not Flappy or Chauncey. It is a different person associated with that original Jonte Porter group chat. I mean, this is a person that we have now spent the last three months investigating. Because I suspect that this person may have served as, in fact, the single most important human connection between Operation Royal Flush over here and Operation Nothing but Bet over there.
- [22:07]
Amin Elhassan
Right now, I feel like I'm Russell Crowe, an American gangster. And we're about to point to the photo. The man really on top of this whole scheme, the guy who brings it all together. All the strings on our Pepe Sylvia board are pointing to humpst.
- [22:22]
Pablo Torre
It is pointing to something we discovered in the days leading up to that press conference that blindsided everybody else. That press conference with the FBI director and the NYPD chief and the prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York. And as you take off your stupid ass glasses, I do think it bears pointing out that what I want to get to might explain so much of what's happened since now after the break.
- [23:08]
US Marines Advertisement Voice
The fight for our future starts with belief in our nation and its promise in our future and its potential. Together, we answer America's call to win. We are Marines. We were made for this.
- [23:23]
DSW Advertisement Voice
Come to DSW for the shoes, stay for the fun. Because let's be honest, if shoe shopping isn't fun, are you even doing it right? So go ahead, try something new. Try something different. Good different. Try something that feels like you, you know, the real you. And then definitely brag about it later. Because at dsw, you've got unlimited freedom to play with sneakers, boots, and everything in between. For every style, mood, and occasion. You'll definitely find shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. Dsw, let us surprise you.
- [23:53]
Pablo Torre
Hey, everyone, Robert Mays here, host of the Athletic Football Show. I've got some news. We're bringing you a brand new show, the Athletic Show. But it's a bit different to what we usually do, isn't it? Zena Kada Hey, Robert. Well, it's a TV show, for starters. Every Saturday on Amazon Fire tv, we're unpacking the most compelling sports stories of the week, assisted by one of the biggest newsrooms ever assembled. How about it? Jason Goff? That's right, Zena. We're interested in the surprising stuff. This isn't about scores or predictions. We want to know why the best hockey team in the world is in South Florida and what happens behind the scenes of a Formula One race in the middle of Las Vegas. So watch the Athletic show, your essential guide to the biggest stories in sports every Saturday on Amazon Fire tv. I mean, there are a lot of characters to choose from in this story. I do just need to explain to you how difficult it was for me to focus on a person of interest here who did not send what is my favorite tweet of all time? Can you please Read Exhibit A?
- [25:00]
Amin Elhassan
Terry Rozierose3 May 1, 2011. Osama should have hooped instead of trying to kill people because he tall as hell. We updated May 1, 2023. Don't know where I was at or what I was doing when I tweeted this, but happy anniversary, dot, dot, dot. I was dead ass, curious, laughing, crying, emoji.
- [25:25]
Pablo Torre
I mean, it's a good take. It's a strong take.
- [25:27]
Amin Elhassan
It's a strong take. Osama Bilal with six, seven, folks.
- [25:30]
Pablo Torre
Absolutely. The Bin Laden NBA sliding doors timeline. We're in a very different universe. But as strong takes go, I do think it's also worth pointing out that Terry Rozier on our YouTube channel, you can see this. This is from March of this year. He has some strong takes of his own. Here he is crossing over Nick Batum of the Los Angeles Clippers in Miami. I mean, he's got it. I mean, he's still got it. Yeah, he got a first round pick in that trade that the Heat made for Tyrosier from the Hornets.
- [26:01]
Amin Elhassan
They sure did. Sorry, there's no return policy on that.
- [26:04]
Pablo Torre
Yeah, there was a no backseas policy in the NBA, despite the fact that there are multiple federal indictments looming. But we leave that aside for now because that controversy is not what we're focusing on here. Our focus Amin is on the only person in this story with an even richer social media history than Scary Terry. Because this person did get named as a defendant in both Operation Royal Flush and Operation Nothing But Bet. And this person, at age 40, is the type of guy who recently posted this on his Instagram account at best that Eva did it, which finally went private, regrettably, in the last week.
- [26:41]
Amin Elhassan
It's a post of a meme, and it says, yes, I support lgbt where the L is for Latinas, G is for gambling, B is for beer. And does that say tax evasion?
- [26:56]
Pablo Torre
That's right. The T is for tax evasion is a illustration of a guy with a sack of money with a dollar sign on it. This, I mean, is the account of one sugar Shane Hennin, who is an LGBT advocate of a different kind. And I've been following this account for the last three months through thousands of pages of court documents and hundreds of social media posts. And it has been a real mind for me. And maybe it is just me, but in case you're not watching on YouTube, you should know that Shane Hannon also looks like this, which is to say that he kind of looks like if Clipper's president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank, once got arrested in 2006 on a felony charge of, quote, facsimile weapon of mass destruction and also a misdemeanor charge of criminal conspiracy related to using gambling devices in dice games.
- [27:45]
Amin Elhassan
He looks like a cleaned up Carl Pilkington.
- [27:48]
Pablo Torre
Yes.
- [27:48]
Amin Elhassan
Ever watched An Idiot Abroad with Ricky Gervage and Stephen Merchant? He looks like Carl Pilkington if he really took care of himself.
- [27:56]
Pablo Torre
And if Carl Pilkington, in this hypothetical comparison, of course, then pled guilty to the aforementioned charges and got six months probation, only to get arrested for stabbing someone in the neck at a pool hall in Pittsburgh in 2009, eventually pleading guilty to aggravated assault.
- [28:12]
Amin Elhassan
Is that wrong? We're not supposed to do that. Well, I had to tell you, I got. I got to plead ignorance on this.
- [28:17]
Pablo Torre
Well, I should point out that less than two weeks after the stabbing, Shane Henning then got arrested for selling cocaine in a casino parking lot, ultimately serving two and a half years in prison.
- [28:28]
Amin Elhassan
Not a good month for Shane Hennin, huh? All these things happening.
- [28:31]
Pablo Torre
But after all of that, what Sugar Shane Hennon decided to do was start anew. He moved from Pennsylvania to Las Vegas and over the next decade, I mean, he did what any enterprising young man with that kind of record might do.
- [28:48]
Amin Elhassan
Worked hard at a straight job.
- [28:50]
Pablo Torre
Exactly right. He became an online sports betting expert.
- [28:55]
Sugar Shane Hennin
Everybody keeps saying, oh my gosh, and you won a million dollars on the weekend, you won a million dollars on Sunday. Like, holy. So yeah, it looks like I cashed out a million dollars, but in all reality I'm only winning like 50, 60k for the week. So that's why I'm saying if anybody thinks that sports betting, you got to just understand there's going to be highs and there's going to be lows.
- [29:20]
Amin Elhassan
Pablo, you can go straight to LA and get me the best casting director that Hollywood has to offer and say I'm casting for the role of, of a guy who just got out of jail and is now an online sports betting expert. Just going off of voice acting though. I don't need to see what he looks like, I need a voice. That's the voice that they provide.
- [29:40]
Pablo Torre
Who also kind of sounded like Joe Pesci and Goodfellas.
- [29:43]
Sugar Shane Hennin
Funny how? I mean, funny like I'm a clown. I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to amuse you? What do you mean funny?
- [29:50]
Pablo Torre
Funny how?
- [29:51]
Sugar Shane Hennin
How am I funny?
- [29:51]
Pablo Torre
Could we make that person? And God said, I got you.
- [29:56]
Amin Elhassan
Oh my beer.
- [29:58]
Pablo Torre
That clip, by the way, is kind of, admittedly, almost eerily introspective. Right. He started talking about the highs and the lows. A moment of just sort of like lucidity. I mean, an account that otherwise is, for the record, quick.
- [30:12]
Sugar Shane Hennin
90,000 on UCLA plus five and a.
- [30:15]
Pablo Torre
Half, hawking picks, posting lots of betting slips, uploading various videos of himself with private jets and stacks of cash at yet more poker tables.
- [30:26]
Sugar Shane Hennin
Somebody like me is, I'm always looking for an edge to bet with. We look at like weaknesses in the lines where we think the casinos are.
- [30:32]
Pablo Torre
Wrong with the lines. For instance, I mean, here are two videos that Shane Hennin posted just last month. The first one.
- [30:42]
Amin Elhassan
I see Shane Hennan, he's got sunglasses on, he's got a white button up shirt, and I believe he's chugging a bottle of Casamigo's reposado.
- [30:51]
Pablo Torre
Well spotted of me.
- [30:53]
Amin Elhassan
Yeah, thank you.
- [30:53]
Pablo Torre
Your expertise on this subject has been well established. Meanwhile, the second video right after that one that I want to show you is this.
- [31:06]
Amin Elhassan
Now, it's Shane Hennan sitting down in that same white button up shirt with a champagne flute in his mouth. But he's not holding it up, Pablo. No, what's holding up the other end of the glass is an attractive young blonde woman in a swimsuit that is patterned with what appears to be hundred dollar bills.
- [31:26]
Pablo Torre
Yes, all of that checks out. The cameraman is lingering in ways that can only be described as objectively creepy. But your scouting report is correct. And also, there's another picture I want to show you, which shane posted in 2018. This one after he had done 30 more days in custody. This was the end result of getting pulled over for a DUI in the suburbs of somewhere in Missouri. And apparently he had about 14 grand worth of gambling winnings in his car.
- [31:53]
Amin Elhassan
It is a stack of money, but it's not dollars, Pablo. No, these are euros. And it's like a. A €500 note, but it's like a stack of a. Of a bunch of them. So I don't know, call it maybe about 40 or 50€500 notes spread out on a. What looks like a seat.
- [32:11]
Pablo Torre
The €500 note. I do want to take a beat to observe this here. It no longer exists. So this photo was posted in 2018, but most European Union banks had started phasing out this form of currency around 2016, 2018. I mean, when Shane posted this exact photo. Because turns out that in the absence of the American 500 bill, the €500 note had become the underworld's currency of choice for money laundering and terrorism financing. And in fact, according to The Guardian, the €500 note even had a nickname. A nickname that I dare say Terry Rozier might approve of. What do you think that nickname is?
- [32:59]
Amin Elhassan
Oh, man.
- [33:03]
Pablo Torre
Osama's the Bin Laden is what we were looking for.
- [33:07]
Amin Elhassan
Close. Ah, I went first name. I went too comfortable. I went too familiar. I'm sorry.
- [33:13]
Pablo Torre
Because, quote, while many people know what it looks like, few have ever seen one, end quote. The Bin Laden.
- [33:23]
Amin Elhassan
You know what? Whoever came up with that, that's who the FBI needs to hire to come up with the operation names. Because that's great.
- [33:29]
Pablo Torre
I know, that's just. That's just poetic. So, yeah, few people had ever seen one. Unless, of course, you followed Sugar, Shane Hennon's Instagram account, which also showed you things like Shane Hennon's literal ass.
- [33:44]
Amin Elhassan
Let me read the caption, please. My ass white AF laughing emoji. If you not living life, what you doing?
- [33:56]
Pablo Torre
What are we doing as we watch as the time lapse of Shane Hennon's ass swim across truly like beautifully translucent water in the Maldives. The reason I'm showing you all of this in vivid detail, I mean, is because Shane Hennan is not just the guy who once messed around with facsimile explosives and cheating devices. He is also, according to the allegations in Operation Royal Flush, the guy who supplied the type of cheating technology used by Chauncey Billups allegedly and his fellow co conspirators in private poker games, including the elaborate rigged shuffling machine that we mentioned before. And these photos you can now see because of that indictment.
- [34:38]
Amin Elhassan
Yes, it is the Deckmate 2 shuffler. It's been taken apart on a table from the icloud account of one of the defendants.
- [34:46]
Pablo Torre
And then the next photo you can sort of see a computer program thing.
- [34:51]
Amin Elhassan
Image of the computer program showing information transmitted by the rigged shuffling machine from defendant icloud account. I'm a bigger fan of the Deckmate one. I like the original incarnation.
- [35:03]
Pablo Torre
The sequel is never as good. But now, I mean, given this backdrop, if we turn to the other indictment operation Nothing But Bet, what we find is that Shane Hennon does appear again, but he's almost like buried in this indictment. He doesn't lead any of the sections that we can read. And yet in item number 38, what we learn is that in March 2023, Shane Hennon made use of a tip, a tip allegedly originating from Terry Rogier himself, that Rozier was going to be taking himself out of a Hornets game in New Orleans. I mean, and the reason that Shane Hennin was told this, according to the government, was clear.
- [35:44]
Amin Elhassan
So that Hennin, both himself and through a network of straw betters, could place bets on the defendant Terry Rozier's unders. And later on it says Henin marshaled a network of associates to place bets on Rozier's unders at Henin's direction.
- [36:03]
Pablo Torre
And if you keep reading this indictment, what you learn is that Shane Hennan marshaling this network of betters to make multiple bets is also the thing that happened with the information that allegedly originated from Chauncey Billups about his tanking Blazers and also with the intel about John Tay Porter, whose text message about his one man Raptors tank job was forwarded straight to Shane Hennan, allegedly. But in this case, the case with Terry, Roger Rozier took himself out of his March 2023 game after less than 10 minutes, as scheduled. And you can see, in fact, this exact moment of mean that he started grabbing at his injured, quote, unquote, right foot only for less than a week later. Allegedly, two other named defendants to come visit Shane Hennon in Philadelphia to pick up their winnings. The winnings they got betting Terry Rozier unders in that game. And some of those winnings, according to this indictment, got delivered back to Terry Rozier himself. The proceeds were later delivered to his home, where the group counted their cash as the NBA season tips off. His career is already benched, not for injury, but for integrity as a result of this investigation.
- [37:19]
Amin Elhassan
You can just tell us what the charges are. They can just say, this is the indictment. This is what happened.
- [37:24]
Pablo Torre
It's kind of like a lot of people finally discover what it's like to be a headline writer for, like, the back page of the New York Post, and they're like, we're getting these takes off too, sir.
- [37:34]
Amin Elhassan
I read the New York Post every single day I was in high school. The people come up with those back page headlines are like Keats compared to these DOJ hacks.
- [37:43]
Pablo Torre
Right. The New York Post, for the record, went with hoop fellas, which I think is a lot better.
- [37:48]
Amin Elhassan
Yeah.
- [37:49]
Pablo Torre
You know, but look, headless body and topless bar. The gold standard. All of us are still just, you know, we're pretending we're playing for second. That's right. But as for the plight of Terry Rozier and him leaving that game in March of 2023 with a supposed right foot problem that you saw before. The NBA says that it was alerted to irregular betting activity by the sportsbook in question. Right away, a source at the league office tells ptfo, quote, once we heard about it, the wheels started turning. We were deliberate, end quote. But according to multiple sources familiar with the situation, the NBA waited until late spring to conduct its own internal investigation of Rozier, at least in earnest. This was an investigation that would be led by the league's external law firm of choice, Wachtel, Lipta. And Rogier, we are told, sat for a zoom interview and he handed over his cell phone to the league, which was in turn handed over to league investigators looking for specific search terms. Except NBA investigators did not find a smoking gun violation on Rozier's phone, according to these sources. And the league ultimately chose to not inform the Miami Heat and other teams about the unusual betting activity stuff before Scary Terry got traded to South Beach. And instead they chose to defer to the Feds, who, according to Rozier's attorney, Jim Trustee, quote, appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non case, end quote. But on Wednesday, our source in the NBA league office disputed that to Pablo Torre finds out, quote, terry's investigation was never closed, so he was not cleared of anything. Us not being able to find something is not the same as cleared. It is true we did not find a violation of our rules, but we did not close our investigation, end quote. And the last thing you should know here is that on Tuesday, Jim Trustee, Rozier's attorney, went on Fox News to say, quote, I'm not here to defend anybody else in the indictment. There's a bunch of people. Terry doesn't even know if he could pick him out of a lineup, end quote. But what has not yet been reported about the whole cash collection thing that happened in Philly, I mean, is that Shane Hennan, true to form, perhaps was not exactly laying low here. You may recall, in fact, how we found Shane's friend Amar Awade, AKA Flappy, watching the Knicks courtside days after Jonte Porter got banned for life. Well on at best that ever did it. You can see exactly where Shane Hennon happened to be on March 29, 2023, when those guys allegedly traveled to Philly to collect.
- [41:10]
Amin Elhassan
Oh, wow, here we go. We're sitting, it looks like courtside at a game with the caption, when my partner come to Philly and win the Drip Cam, make me got to step my game up. Rolling, laughing emoji. Rolling, laughing emoji at Vizinol. Underscore locks. Ice cold emoji. Ice cold emoji. Ice cold emoji.
- [41:32]
Pablo Torre
That's right. This is a photo courtside at a Sixers game on March 29, 2023, of Shane Hennon sitting courtside next to his self described partner and friend and fellow defendant in the NBA betting indictment named Marvis Fairley, who. This is going to shock you. Amin is also a sports betting expert. He sells pics under his Instagram handle Yeslocks. It's Vezino locks, man on three. Vezino locks on three, baby. Come on. One, two, three Vezino locks. He has in fact pled not guilty. Let's be very clear about this. Not guilty to this whole thing. But back in the timeline of this specific federal indictment from the United States government, we go from the Terry Roger game on March 23, 2023, to the Blazers game the very next day, March 24, 2023, which is when Shane Hennon and company allegedly profited off of inside information allegedly supplied by head coach Chauncey Billups about Dame Lillard being out of the game. And then we go to the Dante Porter scheme, which started with bets in January 2024 and was forever memorialized at that food court in Atlantic City in March of 2024. But in January of 2025, okay, this is this year, something important happened. I mean in the jet setting, sports betting, tequila chugging, life of sugar, Shane Hennon, because at the best that Eva did it, was finally arrested by the feds at the Las Vegas airport. This was part of the case that originated with his friend Amar Awade and the whole Jonte Porter Group chat. And I'd like you to please read from the following court document that we obtained.
- [43:25]
Amin Elhassan
On January 8, 2025, the defendant purchased a one way ticket to Colombia, connecting through Panama, which was scheduled to depart from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada. HRI On January 12, 2025, the defendant was arrested in connection with the complaint at HRI as he attempted to board the above referenced flight to Panama. During a search incident to the defendant's arrest, law enforcement agents found on the defendant multiple cell phones and just under $10,000 in cash. Upon arrest, the defendant also stated to law enforcement agents unprompted that he was traveling to Colombia to purportedly seek dental treatment.
- [44:06]
Pablo Torre
I am told reliably that Colombia might be considered the best that ever did it at dentistry.
- [44:12]
Amin Elhassan
They are the Turkey of the Western Hemisphere.
- [44:15]
Pablo Torre
What Turkey is to hairlines. Colombia reportedly is to your grill.
- [44:20]
Amin Elhassan
They do teeth too in Turkey now.
- [44:22]
Pablo Torre
But there is another passage from the same letter, the same court document that is filed by the acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York that I want to highlight here as well. If you can read this part.
- [44:34]
Amin Elhassan
The defendant's motive to flee is obvious. The proof of his guilt is overwhelming. And particularly given his substantial criminal history, he may ultimately face up to two decades in prison upon conviction. Among other evidence, witnesses, phone records, financial records and betting records confirmed that the defendant orchestrated and participated in numerous fraudulent wager schemes which among other things, resulted in potentially millions of dollars worth of illicit profits and money laundering transactions.
- [45:10]
Pablo Torre
Shane Hennan, in other words, according to federal government, is the orchestrator of this whole gambling scandal. He was supposed to be charged with wire fraud and money laundering.
- [45:21]
Amin Elhassan
And this is Russell Crow putting up the picture. There's our guy. This is our Frank Lucas, allegedly.
- [45:28]
Pablo Torre
So the question that We've been circling here for months now. Is this after Shane Hennin got arrested at the Las Vegas airport? Having orchestrated with the government itself has called potentially the largest sports betting scandal in US History. How in the did Shane Hennin get released that same day?
- [45:51]
Amin Elhassan
Good lawyer.
- [46:02]
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- [46:48]
Pablo Torre
One of the most effective ad channels out there? With Acast Ads Academy, you can learn everything you need to plan and run podcast advertising campaigns completely free. Whether you're new to audio or ready to sharpen your skills, our self paced courses fit your schedule and finish with an industry recognized certification. So if you want to grow your expertise and stand out in a competitive industry, head to go. Acast.comacademy so I mean, this is the part of the story where we here at Pablo Tori finds out had to make a physical trip to the Eastern District Courthouse in downtown Brooklyn the day after that giant press conference with FBI Director Cash Patel and the NYPD commissioner and the whole array of federal prosecutors. Because that courthouse turns out to be the only place that a journalist can access what turns out to be the final entry on Shane Henin's original court docket. And a docket for those not familiar is just the official log of a criminal case from start to finish, gavel to gavel, as it were. And this entry here refers to a transcript of the proceedings in January 2025, the one we mentioned before, which have not yet been made public. And so when you walk into the courthouse, I mean, you gotta hand over your phone, you gotta hand over all your electronic devices. It's like you're walking into a Dave Chappelle show. Can't record any of it. And what you have to do is log onto a special computer and then you're allowed to take notes just by hand. And what we found at this Courthouse is the transcript of Shane Hennan's 14 minute bail hearing on January 31, 2025 in New. And what you find in that transcript is that Shane Hennin and the US Government have started plea negotiations and that at one point the judge says the following about Shane.
- [48:47]
Amin Elhassan
It appears he understands the application and it's in his interest, the public's interest, and the interest of justice to try to resolve this case with the plea rather than moving ahead with the indictment immediately. So we'll enter that on the docket, end quote.
- [49:05]
Pablo Torre
And what the rest of that docket says is that in the case of the United States of America v. Shane Hennan, Shane Hennan has been released on a $200,000 bond with some caveats that make clear that Shane should not do.
- [49:19]
Amin Elhassan
The following, not leave the following areas, except for travel to and from court and the checkbox selected is continental United States and abstain from all alcohol use, shall use his true name only and not use any false identifiers. That is checked as well.
- [49:38]
Pablo Torre
It is also worth noting here in that the otherwise redacted bail hearing in which the judge said, quote, it's been a long time since she'd seen a request to begin plea negotiations so quickly. That same judge then jumped in to ask, quote, should there be any limitations on his involvement with betting or other similar financial activity? To which the Assistant U.S. attorney responded that they apparently hadn't really discussed that. Which, you know, seemed odd to me as a podcaster investigating a sports betting scandal at least. But you know what? Let's just go with it. Let's actually just take that discrepancy at face value. Because it is also worth reminding everybody that those videos of Shane Hannon chugging the Casamigos that you identified and having that glass of alcohol fed to him by that woman covered in, you know, Ben Franklin's face. Those were posted by Shane Hennan on September 25, 2025, meaning this was while he and the government continued to negotiate his ongoing plea agreement, according to court records.
- [50:46]
Amin Elhassan
Pablo those videos were taken in the continental United States. One out of three ain't bad. That's hall of Fame and baseball.
- [50:54]
Pablo Torre
That's right. It seems like he was correctly identifying himself as the person not abstaining from all alcohol use on a sheer batting average level. Not bad. Now, what I should say here is that we reached out to Shane Hennan and his attorney, asking for interviews and sending a detailed list of questions, like whether Shane Hennan should really be considered as he was, by the U.S. attorney's office the quote, unquote, orchestrating force. Basically the puppet master of this whole scandal. Or like, why that whole thing about how maybe Shane should not be gambling while out on bail and how the assistant U.S. attorney was like, we hadn't really discussed it, but okay, I wanted to know why that stuff goes didn't end up in Shane's official bond agreement in the end, in that whole write in section alongside the not drinking part and the whole you must identify yourself under your real name part as he, you know, roamed about the continental United States this year. And on Wednesday, we finally received this statement from Shane Hennan's lawyer. Quote, this case is still in its early stages and we have not yet had the opportunity to review all of the discovery. Mr. Hennin will be entering a plea of not guilty to all charges in the indictment and maintains his innocence. The lawyer then added that he would address the court this Thursday when Hannon is scheduled to be arraigned in New York City around when this episode publishes, which raises another key question as we review evidence. Hiding in plain sight while searching for sugar Shane.
- [52:48]
Amin Elhassan
What else is Shane up to, by the way?
- [52:50]
Pablo Torre
So I'm glad you asked this question, because in March of this year, 2025, this is less than two months after that judge let him out on bail as his plea negotiations continued and continued. At best that ever did, it posted an Instagram carousel. I mean, with the caption life lately.
- [53:12]
Amin Elhassan
Oh, this is Instagram royalty right here. That caption life lately. Look at that. He's outside.
- [53:20]
Pablo Torre
So that I believe that's outside the Garden. Outside of Madison Square Garden.
- [53:25]
Amin Elhassan
This looks a lot like Brickle down in Miami.
- [53:28]
Pablo Torre
You're like a geoguessr for degenerate hangouts, dude.
- [53:32]
Amin Elhassan
I'll tell you. Like this. This is my life. Oh, yep, there he is. He's at a Heat game. He's staring at someone. And let's. Now we're at the Satai. It looks like it's a resort. Miami Beach.
- [53:44]
Pablo Torre
Yep.
- [53:45]
Amin Elhassan
Drinking it out of a coconut.
- [53:47]
Pablo Torre
I want to go back to that Heat game, the one where he was sitting baseline. The Heat are playing the Clippers, and if we play this thing through you, you can maybe tell that he's looking out at a Heat guard that he posted the picture of. Oh, with the number two.
- [54:04]
Amin Elhassan
I mean, guys, we're not doing this, are we?
- [54:09]
Pablo Torre
I mean, who wears number two for the Miami Heat?
- [54:13]
Amin Elhassan
I believe it's a man they affectionately call Scary Terry.
- [54:17]
Pablo Torre
You may remember a mean way at the beginning of this episode when I showed you that photo. Of Terry Rogier with a strong take crossing over the Los Angeles Clippers and Nicholas Batum. This photo was from March of this year. Just to reiterate that it's March 12th.
- [54:32]
Amin Elhassan
How do y' all keep getting me on these?
- [54:34]
Pablo Torre
March 12, 20205 Clippers heat a game that has not been mentioned in any of the indictments. Enhance.
- [54:43]
Amin Elhassan
Oh my gosh, enhance. You could not have set it up better as a picture, as a framing right off of Terry Rosa as he's crossing the ever living out of Nicholas Batum in the same in between his upper thigh and his chest. You know that angle that's being created by his body in the crossover right in between, that is a blurry image in the background of a bald white man in a black shirt. It looks a lot like Shane Hennan.
- [55:18]
Pablo Torre
It looks a lot like a guy who's kind of like a mix between Lawrence Frank and Carl Pilkington, who kind of sounds like Joe Pesci, that has the skull shape that is distinctly similar to the guy who owns the Instagram account that posted a photo from exactly that point of view. And so this brings us to the question that we have been circling for months now. And that question is also a question that isn't just raised because of the behavior that Shane Hennon himself was documenting on Instagram. It has been raised because of that story that I referenced before, if you will recall, that time that Shane Hennon got convicted for selling cocaine in that casino parking lot that I told you about in 2009, which you may also recall happened less than two weeks after he, you know, stabbed that guy in the neck at a pool hall in Pittsburgh in 2009.
- [56:12]
Amin Elhassan
That was a real tough month for him.
- [56:14]
Pablo Torre
Yes, that rough month turns out lasted for a while longer and did not resolve itself until 2011 when then 26 year old Shane Hennin took the stand in what I can only describe as a mad lib of a mob trial to testify. We are talking about three ounces of cocaine, a sprawling government conspiracy case against a bunch of alleged associates of the Bosnian ringleader of the branch of a Mexican drug cartel operating in America. And also, and I did not know this existed, some sort of cocaine pressing machine. All of this taking place in Shane's hometown of Pittsburgh, the Deckmaster 3. The equivalent, I'm, I can only presume of cocaine pressing. Anyway, this is where Amin, I'm going to invite you to do that thing where we do a table read together in which you are going to have to play Shane Hennin reliving some of his personal legal history. And I'm going to play the role of the government lawyer.
- [57:20]
Amin Elhassan
Okay.
- [57:22]
Pablo Torre
Now, Mr. Hennin, you've been convicted in federal court for cocaine dealing. Is that correct?
- [57:27]
Amin Elhassan
Yes, I have.
- [57:28]
Pablo Torre
Did you plead guilty or were you convicted at a trial?
- [57:32]
Amin Elhassan
I pled guilty.
- [57:33]
Pablo Torre
And did you have a plea agreement?
- [57:35]
Amin Elhassan
Yes, I did.
- [57:37]
Pablo Torre
Did the plea agreement have any provisions concerning cooperation?
- [57:41]
Amin Elhassan
It would just help me to do with my sentence.
- [57:44]
Pablo Torre
And when you say it would help you reduce your sentence, what are we talking about?
- [57:49]
Amin Elhassan
My cooperation.
- [57:51]
Pablo Torre
What does cooperation mean?
- [57:53]
Amin Elhassan
Giving information that I know about.
- [57:56]
Pablo Torre
Now, after that, I am now the Bosnian ringleaders, associates, lawyer. When you got arrested, did you agree to cooperate quickly?
- [58:07]
Amin Elhassan
Yes.
- [58:08]
Pablo Torre
All right. How quickly? That day, as soon as you got popped, you said, I'm gonna cooperate?
- [58:16]
Amin Elhassan
Yeah.
- [58:17]
Pablo Torre
All right. Now, you indicated that you on many occasions went to other places to gamble.
- [58:22]
Amin Elhassan
Huh.
- [58:23]
Pablo Torre
Did you know that it was a condition of your bond that you were not allowed to leave the state without permission?
- [58:29]
Amin Elhassan
That I was.
- [58:30]
Pablo Torre
You disregarded that.
- [58:32]
Amin Elhassan
Yes.
- [58:33]
Pablo Torre
All right. Now, isn't it in fact true that the federal government actually paid for you to go to Detroit?
- [58:40]
Amin Elhassan
That they did.
- [58:42]
Pablo Torre
All right. And that was so that you could try to set someone up there?
- [58:47]
Amin Elhassan
That's correct.
- [58:48]
Pablo Torre
You didn't want to go to jail for a 10 year mandatory?
- [58:52]
Amin Elhassan
That's correct.
- [58:53]
Pablo Torre
And you said, I'll cooperate.
- [58:55]
Amin Elhassan
That's correct.
- [58:56]
Pablo Torre
Real quickly.
- [58:58]
Amin Elhassan
Yep.
- [58:59]
Pablo Torre
All right. Because you had to look out for yourself.
- [59:02]
Amin Elhassan
That's correct.
- [59:03]
Pablo Torre
No one else is gonna look out for you, right?
- [59:06]
Amin Elhassan
That's correct.
- [59:07]
Pablo Torre
In fact, no one's really looked out for you your entire adult life.
- [59:12]
Amin Elhassan
That's correct.
- [59:13]
Pablo Torre
And that's why you're out here hustling and cheating people.
- [59:17]
Amin Elhassan
That's correct.
- [59:19]
Pablo Torre
Inseed. Look, the whole thing about who's looking out for who here, I think it's clear that in this deal that Shane Henan could not have been more granularly specific about admitting to in court documents, Shane Hennan looked out for himself. And what you should know is that after that 2011 testimony in that mob trial, Shane Hennan finally pled guilty to the whole cocaine charge. But he was still under supervised release for the next four years until 2015. So he was only allowed to travel in Florida for his alleged new job as a sales rep for a seafood wholesaler. But According to a 2015 court document, Shane Hennon spent those four years going to Vegas to gamble.
- [60:03]
Amin Elhassan
That's correct.
- [60:05]
Pablo Torre
This even when the government denied his request. And according to the court document, I mean, Shane Hennon even showed his Parole officers, his winnings from a trip he made in 2014. Although again, his parole officers might have also just checked his Instagram account to see the chips that say Bellagio on them alongside one of those slips that you get when you win money at a casino.
- [60:32]
Amin Elhassan
In case you were wondering, where is he? It's got the money, it's got the chips with the name of the establishment on it. You get what you incent. If the incentive structures provided reinforce the behavior that you're getting, guess what? You are going to continue to get that behavior. And so, sugar Shane Hennin. It might seem ballsy to us, but as we're presenting more and more of this, this kind of evidence of the pattern of behavior is because it was reinforced. The government said it was cool, basically implicitly allowed it to be cool for him to operate in that. In that manner. And so he continued to operate in that manner.
- [61:18]
Pablo Torre
And in Shane Hannon's case, by the way, in his personal case, this stuff kept on happening. According to one DEA report, he traveled cross country unauthorized with over $10,000 in cash in 2016. Apparently, Shane tried two separate times, in one instance acting as his own lawyer, which would have been a hell of a table read for us to do to end his official supervised release, which the government denied, citing Shane's quote, non compliance. Of course, you will not be surprised to learn that he posted yet another video that same day of himself boarding a private jet. And all of this seemed to come crashing down when Shane did get pulled over for that DUI I referenced many moons ago. This was in Missouri, outside of St. Louis in 2017. He had more than the $14,000 I mentioned in cash. And Shane claimed that that money was gambling winnings. His probation officer then had to flag it. But three months after that DUI arrest, he could not help himself because he posted this on Instagram.
- [62:28]
Amin Elhassan
Yeah, it's him and Little John.
- [62:31]
Pablo Torre
Oh, God.
- [62:33]
Amin Elhassan
And the caption says, lil John at Jewel nightclub, which I believe is at Aria at Alejandro_tj2lv had it lit last night.
- [62:48]
Pablo Torre
Notably, Lil John, the, you know, worldwide recording artist, has a shirt that I think says you Snapchat on it. Anyway, all of this brings us back to 2025. Now, this is when Shane Hennon got arrested, you will recall, in January at the Vegas airport, headed on a one way flight to Columbia for dental work that I can only imagine would have made Lil Jon proud, as Little John is flashing his own grill in that photo. And what happens, of course, is that Shane Hennan winds Up frequenting after that arrest, the Aria High Limit Bar. Once again, I can't wait to go.
- [63:27]
Amin Elhassan
Back to summer league. I'm gonna go hang out at that bar.
- [63:29]
Pablo Torre
Yeah. Apparently, like, the Aria High Limit Bar is the Mos Eisley Cantina of the professional basketball world.
- [63:36]
Amin Elhassan
A den of scum and villainy, as.
- [63:39]
Pablo Torre
My poker source that you heard from before can personally attest to.
- [63:43]
Anonymous Poker Source
This summer in Vegas, Shane Hennan is there every day at the Aria, sitting at the Aria Bar as well as some other casinos, just sitting there, hanging out, like, drinking. And the Aria High Limit Bar, if you don't know, is, like, the place to be when there's a lot going on in Vegas. That's like, the social place where everyone kind of networks and. And Shane was there every day. And so a bunch of us are talking, like, why would he be here? It makes no sense. Like, why is he just hanging out, you know, during the World Series of Poker and even after that, like, every weekend in Vegas at the Oriole Bar? Like, this guy just got indicted for, like, a huge crime. Shouldn't he be in jail? And so he started asking around to different people, and multiple people put two and two together that. That Shane is a government informant.
- [64:33]
Amin Elhassan
He's not Joe Pesci. He's Henry Hill. He's Ray Liotta's character in Goodfellas. He's a rat.
- [64:39]
Pablo Torre
Allegedly.
- [64:39]
Amin Elhassan
Allegedly.
- [64:40]
Pablo Torre
Well, look, but it is the thing that if you talk to enough people around the poker world, this is their consensus. A half dozen people have relayed this thought to me, and yes, it is recalling that line in Goodfellas, if they are correct, when Ray Liotta, Henry Hill, talks about turning on his crew, he goes, the hardest thing for me, leaving the life. I still love the life. And we were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all just for the asking.
- [65:11]
Amin Elhassan
As he told us himself in his Maldives swimming picture, if you're not living the life, what are you doing? Bare white ass.
- [65:18]
Pablo Torre
And it should be clear, of course, that this theory around Shane Hennan's cooperation with the federal government is, for now, simply a theory. That's all we're saying. The big question of, is the puppet master a rat? Is, of course, being said in the absence of some official governmental confirmation.
- [65:37]
Amin Elhassan
We're just asking questions.
- [65:52]
Pablo Torre
I mean, before I let you go here, we do have to get to the question of Shane Hennan's docket, because we have been tracking Shane's case for three months now. We've been tracking it as his lawyer and the government kept buying time negotiating this plea agreement. While, by the way, the lawyer for Amar Awade, otherwise known as Moose's cousin, otherwise known as Flappy, was doing the same for him. And on Monday of last week, this is October 20, 2020, five days before the big Thursday presser that blew up the sports world, we did start to hear rumors about Chauncey Billups being involved. We started making calls as a result about Terry Rozier, which is how we happened to break that news on Twitter before Sham Charania and espn. Thursday morning, the games in the New.
- [66:41]
Amin Elhassan
York area were backed by the Bonanno.
- [66:44]
Pablo Torre
Gambino and Genovese crime families of La Casa Nostra. While the cases are separate, there are.
- [66:52]
Amin Elhassan
Three overlapping defendants charged in both cases.
- [66:55]
Pablo Torre
Damon Jones, Eric Earnest and Shane Hennin. And I just do need to clarify Amin that Damon Jones and Eric Earnest mentioned there by U.S. attorney Joe Nucella, have pleaded not guilty to all charges. And I also want to clarify that I have been spending all the last week talking to people who have personally prosecuted federal cases much like this one. And there are basically two clubhouse leading theories that we need to reckon with at the end here. In the first theory, the poker underworld that we heard from is actually onto something. Shane Henin, the one time government informant who had been flown around the country by the feds at one point, has been cooperating once again with the feds this entire time as a future star witness, feeding the government valuable information, including Pictures of the Deckmate 2 shuffler from his iCloud account in order to save his own ass when it comes to his plea agreement. This is what would explain why perhaps he was seemingly moving about the country, sitting courtside watching Terry Rogier cross over Nicholas Batum and also hanging out invariably apparently at the aria high limit area, moving around with de facto diplomatic immunity. Allegedly, that's the first theory. But now I want to give you the second theory, Amin, which I find even more poetic in its own right. Because in this second theory, according to my federal prosecutor sources, Shane Hennan is not going to be a star witness for the government, actually. And that would explain why he was named as a defendant in both cases. Because while Shane Hannon has been spending this entire year since he got arrested in January in Vegas at the airport, negotiating his plea agreement for months and months now, feeding the government that valuable headline making information along the way, as he's admitted to doing in the past, Shane Hennan may have made a crucial mistake, which is that his behavior while out on bail, chugging the casamigos drinking from the glass of a woman who was holding it with her mouth while wearing a hundred dollar bill printed swimsuit. That behavior might have actually ruined his credibility as an actual witness in a trial that the government might plausibly call to the stand. Meaning that the government may well have gotten a lot of information from Shane Hennan, who has been historically eager to give that information. But precisely how much remains in question, as Shane Hennin might not have gotten the protection that he sought in exchange.
- [69:46]
Amin Elhassan
This might be the worst case scenario for Shane Hennin is that you snitch on the record, you get everyone you were working with in trouble, and you get zero protection or immunity. You get charged yourself. Dare I say it, Pablo, he might have to watch out for stitches.
- [70:05]
Pablo Torre
Well, his very unprotected white ass might want to, you know, be a bit careful. That would be the implication of theory number two. And as we wait, further developments in this docket, there are questions. I mean, and some of the outstanding questions in this enormous NBA nightmare relate to Malik Beasley. Because, of course, Malik Beasley, you should know, happened to join the Lakers roster on Feb. 9, 2023, the same day that Lakers assistant Damon Jones was allegedly texting inside information to, quote, get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight to an unidentified co conspirator number nine, who is described in the indictment only as a resident of Brooklyn. Malik Beasley, you may now recall, is also the player that the cousin of Amar Flappy Awade, a resident of Brooklyn, had been tweeting about months before the federal investigation into Beasley was ever mentioned in public. But months after Amar Flappy Awade had turned himself into the feds, joining the other charter members of that Jontay Porter group chat, only to very curiously not be named as a defendant in the government's NBA betting indictment when it got unsealed last week. Awade, by the way, was fighting the government's opposition to his bail heading into a hearing this Wednesday. And all of this is to say that multiple sources with direct knowledge tell Pablo Torre finds out that the federal government's investigation into Malik Beasley is still ongoing two weeks into this NBA season, as Malik Beasley remains a frustrated friend, free agent. Now, when asked about this, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office here in the Eastern District of New York told us, quote, no comment. But an official at the NBA League office tells us that Beasley is still also being investigated internally by the league's lawyers for betting activity, despite not finding any, quote, hard evidence of Beasley altering his performance or communicating with gamblers to tip his performances, end quote. When they got their hands on the phone of Malik Beasley, who had, according to sources, previously been investigated by the NBA for bets he'd made on other sports. But the next question I needed to broach here takes us to Washington, D.C. because members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and members of the Senate Committee on Commerce have written a pair of bipartisan letters demanding accountability from Commissioner Adam Silver. And what congressional sources tell us is that these members will not be satisfied until Adam Silver answers questions in a televised hearing under oath. As Congresswoman Yvette Clark, the Democrat from New York on the House Committee, tells Pablo Torre finds out in a statement, quote, the recent federal indictments have called into question the integrity of the National Basketball Association. We will uncover the full scale of this scandal if when the NBA fails to protect the integrity of the game, Congress will step in to fill that void. We look forward to hearing from Mr. Silver directly. End quote. Meanwhile, in another exclusive statement to ptfo, the US Democratic senator from Hawaii, Brian Schatz, who sits on the Senate's committee, tells us, quote, recent allegations about gambling in the NBA need to be investigated thoroughly. Basketball fans and the broader public deserve to know the extent of this scandal, end quote. And that is kind of all we're trying to do on this show as well. You know, ask the right questions of powerful people. Which brings us to one more question that is provoked by a real life crook who amusingly sounds like Joe Pesci. What kind of case does Department of Justice actually have against these bold faced, headline making names who have become the thing that pops up on the back of the New York Post Hoops, fellas. And speaking of, it's really hard for me to not think of the wise words spoken by a man with an almost remarkable lucidity about how sports betting, much like a federal investigation, really is a long game.
- [75:09]
Sugar Shane Hennin
Everybody keeps saying, oh my gosh, and you won a million dollars on, on the weekend, you won a million dollars on Sunday. Like, holy. So, yeah, it looks like I cashed out a million dollars, but in all reality I'm only winning like 50, 60k for the week. So that's why I'm saying if anybody thinks that sports betting, you got to just understand there's going to be highs and there's going to be lows.
- [75:34]
Amin Elhassan
So this is a low, right?
- [75:36]
Pablo Torre
That's correct.
- [75:37]
Amin Elhassan
Oh, call back.
- [75:49]
Pablo Torre
This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.
- [76:17]
Amin Elhassan
The wrongs we must right the fights we must win. The future we must secure together for our nation. This is what's in front of us. This determines what's next for all of us. We are Marines. We were made for this.
- [76:47]
Pablo Torre
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- [76:55]
Dave DeFore
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- [76:57]
Amin Elhassan
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- [76:58]
Dave DeFore
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- [77:08]
Pablo Torre
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- [77:25]
Dave DeFore
So search for Inside Trump's Head wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released three times a week or on all major podcast platforms or tune in a day earlier on The Daily Beasts YouTube channel.
- [77:41]
Pablo Torre
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