The Clippers are in Los Angeles. Steve Ballmer built a $2 billion arena there. And the sponsorship deals at the center of one of the biggest salary-cap scandals in NBA history involved companies scattered across corporate America.
So why are federal prosecutors in Brooklyn investigating it?
The Eastern District of New York has opened a preliminary criminal investigation into the Clippers’ dealings with Kawhi Leonard, according to reports Thursday, with at least one subpoena issued. The scope of the inquiry — and the possible crimes being examined — remain unclear.
What is known is that the NBA announced sweeping penalties on Sept. 2 after an independent investigation by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz found that the Clippers violated salary-cap circumvention rules. The league said the team initiated and facilitated off-court income opportunities for Leonard through four companies doing business with the Clippers: Aspiration Partners, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics and Lockton Insurance. It also found that the team offered those companies business, paid personal expenses for Leonard and his representatives, and failed to report improper solicitations made on Leonard’s behalf by his uncle and then-business manager, Dennis Robertson.
The outcome? A $30 million fine for the Clippers, five forfeited first-round picks and a one-year suspension for Ballmer. Leonard was ordered to pay the league $700,000.
Aspiration has separately attracted federal scrutiny. Co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in prison in June after pleading guilty to wire fraud in a scheme that caused at least $248 million in investor and lender losses. That prosecution, however, was in California — not Brooklyn.
EDNY’s appearance in the Clippers matter nevertheless fits a pattern. The office has become a remarkably frequent player in federal cases involving professional sports, inside information and allegedly manipulated gambling.
Its history with NBA betting scandals dates back nearly two decades.
In 2007, veteran NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to transmit gambling information. Donaghy admitted using nonpublic information available to him as a referee — including officiating assignments, relationships between referees and players or team personnel, and players’ physical conditions — to make betting picks. He and a co-conspirator even developed a telephone code to communicate them. Donaghy was paid when his picks were correct and received nothing when they lost.
Nearly two decades later, another betting scandal brought an NBA player before the same federal district.
Then-Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter agreed with Long Phi Pham and others to leave games against the Clippers on Jan. 26, 2024, and Sacramento Kings on March 20, 2024, early on purported health grounds, according to federal prosecutors. His co-conspirators used that advance, nonpublic information to bet on Porter’s statistical “unders.”
A relative of one conspirator netted $75,000 from a January bet, while another $7,000 parlay returned $40,250. Porter played just three minutes in the March game, and the conspirators ultimately netted more than $1 million from wagers tied to that performance.
After the NBA began investigating, Porter warned the group that they “might just get hit w a rico” and asked whether participants had deleted material from their phones.
The case was handled by EDNY’s Business and Securities Fraud and General Crimes sections, with prosecutors Kaitlin Farrell, Benjamin Weintraub and David Berman leading the prosecution.
Porter’s case, however, proved to be less of an endpoint than a starting point.
In October 2025, EDNY charged Terry Rozier and five others in a broader alleged scheme involving nonpublic information about NBA players’ expected performances. The indictment incorporated the Porter conduct and alleged that some of the same betting network exploited inside information elsewhere.
The central Rozier episode goes back to March 23, 2023, when he played for the Charlotte Hornets. Prosecutors allege Rozier told longtime friend Deniro Laster that he planned to leave that night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans early because of a purported injury. The information was allegedly passed along to bettors who placed more than $200,000 in wagers on Rozier’s unders.
Rozier exited after roughly nine minutes with five points, four rebounds and two assists. Prosecutors allege many of the bets won and that Laster later met Rozier at his home, where the pair counted cash proceeds.
The indictment also offers a literal Brooklyn connection: Pham allegedly communicated in furtherance of the Rozier wagering scheme while inside the Eastern District of New York.
And once again, Weintraub, Berman and Farrell were prosecuting the case through EDNY’s Business and Securities Fraud Section.
But Rozier wasn’t the only prominent NBA figure charged by Brooklyn prosecutors that day.
In a separate case, Portland Trail Blazers coach and Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups was among 31 defendants charged in an alleged scheme to rig underground poker games. Prosecutors said the operation dated back to at least 2019 and used altered shuffling machines, an X-ray table, a chip-tray analyzer and special contact lenses or glasses to cheat unsuspecting players. The scheme allegedly caused at least $7 million in losses.
The poker case also brought EDNY back to familiar territory: organized crime. Prosecutors alleged that members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families were involved in games in New York and elsewhere.
And the two Oct. 23 indictments were not completely separate. Damon Jones, Eric Earnest and Shane Hennen were charged in both the sports-betting and poker cases.
That overlap gets closer to answering the original question.
EDNY does not have some special jurisdiction over the NBA or professional sports. Federal venue follows the alleged crimes and their connections to the district. But these investigations can spread quickly: defendants overlap, money moves, information is passed between states and alleged conspiracies grow beyond the first person or transaction investigators encounter.
Brooklyn prosecutors have also spent years handling the types of cases now colliding with professional sports — wire fraud, money laundering, illegal gambling, organized crime and the misuse of nonpublic information.
And basketball is no longer the limit.
In November 2025, EDNY charged Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz in an alleged scheme to manipulate individual pitches so bettors could profit from prop bets. One of the pitches attributed to the scheme was thrown against the New York Mets in Queens — squarely inside the Eastern District.
Which brings the story back to the Clippers.
The criminal investigation remains preliminary, and its existence does not mean charges will follow. More importantly, the specific jurisdictional connection that brought the Clippers matter to EDNY has not been made public.
But Brooklyn’s involvement is not as random as it first appears.
From an NBA referee selling inside information, to players accused of manipulating their availability, to allegedly rigged poker games with organized-crime ties, EDNY has spent years investigating the intersection of professional sports, gambling, fraud and money.
The question now isn’t simply why Brooklyn prosecutors are looking 2,400 miles west.
It’s what they found that brought them there.
Alastair Talbot 