A purported victim of a Texas jeweler linked to the NBA cheating ring says he and his poker buddies were scammed out of nearly $1 million in a single night — but that the fraudsters used an ex-NFL player, not a basketball star, as their front man.
The stunning claim could mean that the exploding NBA gambling scandal could be much bigger than prosecutors have thus far revealed, and might include stars in other sports.
“During the game, we were around a bunch of bad guys, and they were trying to suck every bit away from us. And they did. They did a good job, and I’m still shell-shocked to this day from that night,” a source, who did not want to be named, told The Post.
He said he was invited to the private, high-stakes poker game in NYC “with a really solid group of people. We would never have been there if not for the professional athlete.”
He refused to name the athlete, but indicated it was a former NFL player.
Until now, the scandal has revolved around NBA players and a coach.
Two pro basketball players were named by prosecutors in the sprawling poker case, which alleges that fraudsters and mobsters allegedly fixed big-money games using sophisticated cheating tech like rigged X-ray card tables, crooked card shufflers, and special glasses and contact lenses that could spy marked cards, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday in Brooklyn federal court.
Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups and former NBA player Damon Jones were named.
The fixers called their deep-pocketed victims “fish,” while the high-profile athletes who lured them to the tables were called “face cards.”
The anonymous fish could not say if his fleecing was part of the same poker ring probed by the feds — but he did finger at least one man involved in both.
He said Curtis Meeks of Texas — who was named in the Thursday indictment as a major supplier of the cheating machines to the scammers — was a main participant in the rigged game that bilked him and his buddies out of nearly $1 million in a single night.
“Meeks is the most despicable human I’ve ever been around in my entire life,” the man said.
“The level he will go to get other people’s money is just disgusting. I’ve since found out that what he’s done to us, he’s done to many other people. This was not a freak occurrence,” the alleged victim said.
Prosecutors did not go into great detail regarding Meeks. According to a gambling world insider, “Meeks supposedly was an amateur boxer. He went around telling people that he’s a jeweler. That was his schtick.”
He and 30 others were arrested in connection to the massive poker ring, an indictment that also named a slew of mob associates who have previously made headlines — including Thomas “Tommy Juice” Gelardo, who allegedly collected gambling debts with threats and intimidation; and Nicholas “Fat Nick” Minucci, a Gambino crime family associate who was convicted of beating a black kid with a baseball bat while shouting the N-word in 2005.
An attorney for Meeks was not listed, and his family could not be reached for comment.
On the night Meeks allegedly took the Post source for a ride, he used a retired NFL athlete to lure the group into a situation they realized was sketchy from the get-go, but it wasn’t until they were in the midst of the game did they realize they were being scammed.
The professional jock was to join a game planned at a public location, but the venue was suddenly changed to his high-rise apartment, the man said.
There was a series of other red flags, the alleged victim said, including that once inside the apartment, the host raised the buy-in from $10,000 to $20,000 — meaning the victims would lose more money faster. They didn’t exchange cash to get in the game, but were given chips on a credit basis — payable afterwards.
And all the winning hands went “to the four guys who were in on the scam,” he claimed.
“Those guys cheated with a device, and they cheated me and cheated other people who were good people. And they used a star athlete. They used the star to do it. They had us excited. The only reason they were able to pull this off was because they had a professional athlete in place,” the source said.
“We knew that it was a device because of how they would push. It wasn’t like a thing where they could see the backs of cards. It was like, let’s go all in before any cards even come out.”
One of the man’s friends recognized the scam and called out the group before leaving the apartment, but the mobsters followed up with weeks and weeks of relentless demands that they pay up.
“They wouldn’t let up in trying to get their money. It got scarier and scarier. Serious threats were made. Ultimately, we just agreed to pay them,” the victim explained.
The incident closely resembles the plot laid out by federal prosecutors this month, though the 31-defendant indictment does not mention any NFL players or athletes from other sports leagues.
Neither the NFL nor the Eastern District of New York immediately responded to The Post’s request for comment.
A second NBA-related indictment this week involves an illegal sports gambling ring that placed bets on games using insider information about the Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto Raptors, Charlotte Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers and their players.
While the poker scam cost the victim and his friends nearly $1 million, the man says the real price was his “trust for the game.”
“Moving forward is the real punishment. Because there’s a paranoia now. There’s a constant turn in my mind: Something is happening. Considering how sophisticated AI has been and how sophisticated they are, that’s scary to me. I’ve been around so long, playing poker, and I am fine with losing, but I have no tolerance for cheating,” he said.
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