Judges Admit AI Mistakes & NBA Gambling Scandal

Former federal Judge Paul Grimm, Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School, discusses two judges admitting mistakes in orders were made because of the use of artificial intelligence by staff. Derrick Hogan, Partner at Tully Rincke, discusses the NBA gambling scandal. June Grasso hosts.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
A lot of work goes into legal research and writing,
so using AI seems like a way to replicate some
of the very time consuming tasks, such as researching court
cases and citing them in legal briefs. And the legal
profession has seen a rise in the use of AI
in recent years. With lawyers facing increasing scrutiny and sometimes

(00:31):
finds from judges for the alleged misuse of AI as
fake case citations and other errors show up in legal filings,
you may ask how can lawyers fail to vet the
output of AI generated legal documents? And now another question,
how can judges fail to vet AI generated orders before

(00:55):
they go out from their chambers. In a response to
an inquiry from Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, two federal judges,
one in New Jersey and the other in Mississippi, have
admitted that members of their staff used artificial intelligence to
help prepare orders that Grassy said were ever ridden. Joining

(01:16):
me is former federal judge Paul Grimm. He's the director
of the Bolt Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. Are
clerks and interns are they using AI? And doing research
and drafting opinions. Is that sort of the norm.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, I think right now the genies out of the
bottle on that Two or three years ago, the law
schools were really struggling with whether or not students should use,
be able to use artificial intelligence in their class work,
particularly during exams. And I think that probably the needles
moved to the point where the law schools recognize that
this demographic, these young people, they're using this in all

(01:54):
their aspects of their lives, and to try to expect
them not to use it in the practice of law,
especially when law firms have invested heavily in the use
of generative AI in their own business and practices, is
a futile thing. And so I think what the law
schools are trying to do now are teach the students

(02:18):
the proper use of it and are trying to teach them,
you know, the dues and don'ts of how it should
be used. And I think that as for the intern,
I think it was in the District of New Jersey
that use of AI was inconsistent with the judge's own
internal policy and chambers and also inconsistent with what the
law school policy was for use of this, So I

(02:40):
think that while there's no way of knowing whether it's
most students coming out of law school now, I think
probably it is the overwhelming majority are using this and
probably are at schools where they're being taught the proper
way to use it. And it's clear that, you know,
it's been over a year that the American Bar Association

(03:02):
it's Ethics Committee released formal ethics opinion five one two,
five twelve that deals with the ethical issues associated with
the use of artificial intelligence in the practice of law.
So that's over a year old, and the fact that
the ethics people are already starting to tell people how
you use it ethically is pretty clear indication that it's

(03:23):
being used broadly in law schools. And I think that
the students realize that they're going to be expected to
have this skill because the law firms are expecting it,
and that's how they're going to survive and thrive in
the law school environment. So I think that probably the
answer is, yes, they're using it, and that will only increase.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
In the New Jersey case, the use of AI resulted
in a temporary restraining order that referred to parties allegations
and quotes unconnected to the case. So even if you
proofread the restraining order, wouldn't you see that there were
all these problems?

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, in both of those cases, both the Southern District
of Mississippi and also the Digitut of New Jersey. I
think that in retrospect, it looks like if there had
been rigorous proofreading by the law clerks led by the
court the judge themselves, that this should have been caught.
And indeed, the Administrative Office of the US Court has
a task force which is dealing with the use of

(04:25):
AI by judges and chambers. That should be a national
policy across the United States in all of this SCT courts,
and that was issued on July thirty first of twenty
twenty five. And in his response to Senator Grassley's letter
asking for comments from the Federal Administraty Office of the
US Course about any policies dealing with the use of

(04:45):
the generals of AI and chambers, Judge Conrad, who is
the director of the AO, made reference to that. So
there's even interim guidance, and I think that one of
the things that is pretty clear from that guidance is
that the judges are responsible with in their chambers to
make sure that AI is not used for any core

(05:05):
judicial functions such as decision making or adjudication, and strongly
recommends independent verification before any generative AI is used for
any purpose. There are a number of purposes for which
it probably safely can be used, and there's guidance on that.
The National Center for State Courts, which is a terrific
organization that focuses on the state courts, and of course

(05:28):
they are far more state court judges than there are
federal judges, issued a seventeen page document on August seventh
of twenty twenty four titled Artificial Intelligence Guidance for the
Use of AI and Generative AI in the Courts, And
again it goes through extensive definitions of what AI is,

(05:49):
what kind of software applications, There are the ones that
are problematic, the ones that are more useful, how chambers
should operate. And similarly, this year, the Sedona Conference, which
is a think tank that has been around for many
years and is very influential in dealing with cutting edge
technology issues as they apply in the law, issued a
monograph in their journal called Navigating AI in the Judiciary

(06:13):
that was co authored by three statehourt judges and two
federal judges and a professor from Waterloo University that gives
an eight pages some really good guidance to judges as
to how they should and shouldn't use it. So I
think the key takeaway here is, you know, the genies
have a bottle. The stuff is being used. There's a
growing guidance in terms of how it can properly be

(06:34):
used and how it should probably not be used. And
just like courts initially were sanctioning and cautioning lawyers who
didn't use it correctly when they were citing JENAI created
content without checking it, I think the judges themselves are
learning that lesson that they're responsible crediting comes out of
their chambers and they have to manage interns in law

(06:56):
works and make sure that their procedures are complied with.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation with Judge Grimm.
So how much do judges actually vet the work of
their clerks? You're listening to Bloomberg. Two federal judges have
blamed faulty rulings on the use of artificial intelligence tools
by staff members at raises questions about how much they

(07:21):
scrutinize documents issued under their names. Federal judge Julian Neils
in New Jersey and Henry Wingate in Mississippi admitted to
the ai foibles in letters to the Administrative Office of
the US Courts. The answers were sent in response to
questions by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley. I've been

(07:44):
talking to former federal judge Paul Grimm, director of the
Bolt Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. So you have interns,
you have clerks. Does it depend on the judge how
much a judge puts into let's say, an opinion. Do
most judges at least read them over.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, it's a great question, and the answer is it
varies greatly with the chambers. I think as a bottom line,
I don't think it's a federal judge on the court. Now,
where it's take court judge who's hearing cases, they wouldn't
say that they read everything that goes out of their
chambers with their name on it. I mean, unless it's
a scheduling order, it's automatic. You know that says you know,

(08:22):
counselor will by such and such a date provide me
with the following information and we'll have a scheduling call,
but certainly no order coming out of a judges chamber
that deals with a substantive ruling on a case or
an evidentrary motion, you know, something that's going to decide
the merits. I don't think any judge would say that
it's appropriate or a judge to issue in order that

(08:43):
deals with the resolution of a substantive issue in a
case without having read it and verifying to the satisfaction
of that judge that it's legitimate. Now, some judges have
different ways of doing it. What I would do is,
once I had the initial conversation with them and they
sent me a draft, I would ask them to attach
to the draft a PDF copy of the cases that

(09:04):
they cited as this positive. Now, as you're aware, lots
of times there are cases that are just sort of
like a string site in five cases, and there's one
at a recent Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court case
that had the ruling and you're going to rely on it,
I would have them attached a PDF copy of that
and highlight for me in yellow highlighting the language that

(09:26):
they were relying on for what they said, and so
I can independently check it. That way. By giving it
to me that way, it's sped it up for me.
I didn't have to go on West Law or Nexus
and input it all and read it a lot of times.
You know, there's a lot of part of the case,
the initial part talking about the jurisdiction or the standard review.
That's really not important to what the ruling is. But

(09:47):
you want to look at the discussion on one particular
point of law. And by having the actual case and
having the highlighted section, I then had at my fingertips
what I needed to go through. Look at the opinion,
look at the authority, decide whether I thought, you know,
it was adequate for what was necessary, look at the
parties briefing again, and verify that before it went out.

(10:08):
But to your question, to you know, the caseloads of
an average federal judge probably runs between a low of
two hundred to three hundred cases to a high of
a thousand cases. And it depends upon what kind of
an order it is and how busy the court is.
And you know, no matter how hard the judges working
or what kind of safe cards they have in their chambers,

(10:30):
it's possible for things to slip through the cracks and
when it deals with new technology that people are perhaps
not as familiar with. There's going to be a learning
curve at the start, but I think the I think
the cast out of the bag now that the learning
curve time is over and you need to start using it,
you've got guidance that tells you how to do it.
I am quite sure. I'm quite sure that Judge Robin Rosenberg,

(10:54):
who is the director of the Federal Judicial Center, which
is the legal education arm for the Federal judiciary, she's
a fantastic judge. And I am quite sure that the
Baby Judge schools, the judge training programs that they have
every year for new judges and for judges, magestate judges,
bankruptcy judges, district judges, and circuit judges. I am sure

(11:17):
that there will be a segment on the proper use
of AI there because Judge Rosenberg will want to make
sure that the judges have the most recent guidance and
are aware of the pros and the pitch balls.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Let's say, have both sides using AI. Do you think
that this will lead to less innovative legal theories or
legal thinking because they're both using you know, whatever is
on AI.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
That is a worry. There's a worry among law professors
that if students are taught to use AI, that their
own sort of creative approach to a subject will actucy
the critical reasoning skills. And I suppose if the lawyers
are doing that as well, there's always a risk that
it applies to them as well. What they submit, even

(12:04):
if they verify it and they get rid of the
whucinations and they submit the stuff which is real that
they got there through a curated analysis that was done
for them by AI. There's some law and technology people
computer scientists who have raised the specter of a problem
that can occur when you've got these large language model

(12:29):
programs like generative AI, is that you know, one of
the things that you worry about with AI is biased,
and it could be intentional bias, or it can be
inadvertent bias. But when you use a generative AI tool
and you put sort of a narrative inquiry, you know,
what are the key defenses to an any trust case
to the legs the following things in the second circuit

(12:52):
of the United States courts. And you ask a question
like that and it comes out and gives you a list,
and you follow up with a series of follow on questions,
which is sort of a natural progression that the algorithm
senses what you're interested in, senses what you're looking to do,
and starts to provide you with answers, even if they're

(13:14):
based upon legitimate legal sources, consistent with what it into
its your desired outcome is. And that's a real problem
because you know, I'm a dinosaur. When I started doing
legal research, you know, we had digests. There were no computers.
You would go to like contracts and you'd look through
this digest. It was like an old fashionist cyclopedia and

(13:37):
you'd be looking, you know, and you say, it's this
close to the problem I have. And then you would
go to a real book and you'd open it up,
you read the case, and then when you got a case,
you had a whole series of processes to make sure
the case was had not been overruled or modified, called shepherdization.
And what you did was in reading and kind of
going triangulating to all these different things. You might say, well,

(14:00):
you know, I thought it was contract, but it's really warranty,
which is sort of a sub issue of contract, but
it has its own set of rules, and you kind
of would learn through this trial and error that this
intuitive approach to what the answer was, and sometimes it
would be from a different field that you had initially
thought it might be from you miss all that when

(14:22):
you don't have that kind of give and take thinking
about it, I can remember sitting in the law library
with like fifty books open, you know, all surrounding me,
you know, looking at something to try and figure out
what my particular case really needed to have to be
the solution for the position that I was taking. And
I think there's worry that you lose that now. Some

(14:45):
people would tell you, though, June, that if the parties,
one thing you can do one accepted use of AI,
if it's done properly, is you can feed into the
artificial intelligence generator of AI search program the briefs of
the party and ask the particular tool if any of

(15:05):
the cases cited by the parties our host nations are
not proper And you can also say did they miss
any controlling cases in this jurisdiction that deal with this
subject matter? And so it may be possible that AI
will allow the judge to sort of check to see
whether or not the lawyer's joint use of it has

(15:28):
been siloed to where they missed some authority that the
judge really thinks needs to be reflected upon. But I
think that right now, people who talk about the appropriate
use of AI worry that that sort of initial creative
and analytical process, the thought process that law schools have
championed for decades as to critical thinking skills that lawyers

(15:53):
have to have, that they may become a sort of
atrophy and a little bit less well used if people
rely upon AI too much to the exclusion of the
old skills that are that are learned. Now. We heard
some of those same kind of problems about the use
of computers back in the day. I remember lawyers saying that, well,

(16:15):
you could never use computers in litigation. You could use
it in wills and the states because you're using basically
forms the same forms over again, but you'll never use
it in litigation. I think that people would split their
size open laughing at that notion today, because computers are
used in every aspect of law. So you know, we're
at the beginning of this. And keep in mind, you know,

(16:36):
AI has been around since the nineteen fifties, right in
one form or another, but generative AI because of technological advances.
No one was talking about generative AI. I know this
because I used to write opinions as a judge and
scholarship as an adjunct professor and a professor of Duke
about evidentiary issues associated with technical evidence, and no one

(17:00):
was talking about generative AI until about twenty twenty two
when the whole chat GPTV came out. So this is
still relatively recent. And what's confounding is how explosive the
use is become in such a short period of time.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Explosive is the right word. Thanks so much as always,
Judge grim that's Judge Paul Grimm, director of the Bolt
Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver
spoke out on Friday about the bombshell gambling scandal that's
rocked the league.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
I was deeply disturbed. There's nothing more important to the
league and expands and the integrity of the competition, and
so I had a pit in my stomach. It was
very upsetting.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Shock Waves ripple through the sports world after Courtland, Trailblazer's
head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat player Terry Roser
along with thirty others, were indicted as part of two
separate criminal schemes related to illegal sports betting. Joseph Nocella,
the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York,

(18:07):
described the two schemes. The first involved sports betting.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
Between December twenty twenty two and March twenty twenty four,
these defendants perpetrated a scheme to defraud by betting on
inside non public information about NBA athletes and teams. The
non public information included when specific players would be sitting
out future games or when they would pull themselves out

(18:35):
early for purported injuries or illnesses.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
The second involved rigged poker games.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
These defendants, which include former professional athletes, used high tech
cheating technology to steal millions of dollars from victims in
underground poker games that were secretly fixed. The games in
the New York area were backed by the Banano, Ambino
and genal Vezy crime families.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Billings and Rosier face money laundering and wirefront conspiracy charges.
Joining me is Derek Hogan, a partner at Tully Rinky,
tell us about the charges here.

Speaker 5 (19:14):
Broadly, you know the first one involved providing let's say
inside or confidential information to people placing wagers on games. So,
for example, the NBA player involved, Terry Rogier. There are
certain bets that an individual can places, you know, whether
a team wins or loses, the score goes over a
certain amount of points, or there's something called individual prop

(19:36):
bets where betters can make bets on whether a certain
individual is going to score more or less than a
certain number of points, get a certain amount of rebounds,
certain amount of assists, whatever statistical categories they put out there.
And in this instance, it's been alleged that mister Rogier
purportedly told individuals that he was going to leave a
game early, you know, before he reached a certain amount

(19:59):
of points, rebounds, sist, and that if the individuals bet
the under on that, then you know, they would obviously
win their bets. So it's alleged that he passed along
that information and then that other people took that information,
distribute that information to others, and distributed information to others
to make bets on them. And I think it's important

(20:19):
to note in those types of situations that each league,
whether it's the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, national hockey, league.
At some point they issue like an injury report, and
that injury report will let people know who's playing, who's
not playing, who may be playing, probable, questionable things of
that nature, and that information is released, so ultimately the

(20:41):
book makers can put odds out there that are, you know,
the equivalent to who's playing, who's not And so what
was happening mister Rosier's situation. You know that information was
allegedly being disclosed to others prior to any type of
injury report or not even making it on your injury report.
Inside information think about like in a stock tip, right,

(21:03):
Like you might know about a company going public before
it's supposedly out there, and then then you use that
inside information to benefit to yourself. The other involved an
illegal poker game in a sense that it was a
cheated card game. It was through the use of technology
from what I read, whether it's like technology within the
table that the players were using, technology within the cars

(21:24):
that they were using. Essentially that it was a rigged
poker game. And where the high profile bendit, mister Chauncey Billips,
who was the head coach of the Portland Trailblazers. It's
being alleged that he was kind of used to lure
individuals to that game, to lure like an unsuspecting victim
to that game, because think about it, that person might say, oh, Wow,
I'm gonna play poker with Chauncey Billups. Well, I don't

(21:46):
believe mister Billips has been accused of, you know, cheating
the individual a lot of money. What it's been alleged
is at those poker games, it was a rigged poker
game and then ultimately some person loses a lot of
money and then that money is distributed among the co
conspirators and the individuals that ran that game.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Is there a connection between these two indictments or they
just decided to announce them on the same day. And
you know, out of more than thirty people, just three
are associated with the NBA.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
Right, So I mean, I think it's yes and no.
Obviously it's a whole high profile matter. And when you're
talking about Terry Rogier, he's a current NBA player, Chauncey
Billups Hall of Fame player, current NBA coach, they are
kind of interrelated. But also it's been alleged and you
can't really you can't really tell from the indictment involving
mister Rosier, but that indictment mentions a co conspirator who

(22:40):
lived in Oregon at the time and had previously played
in the NBA. The co conspirator, it can surmised to
be it's Chauncey Billups and the reason that is related
to the indictment with mister Rogier. It's alleged that the
individuals and I don't even think mister Rogier, but the
other co defendants in that indictment receive specific information about
certain individuals on the Portland Trailblazers that weren't going to

(23:04):
play that night prior to any release to the public.
That's who Chuncey Billibs was coaching at the time. So
while mister Bilbs has not been charged in connection with
the call it the betting scandal, the NBA betting scandal,
it is potentially he's listed as a co conspirator. But
to your question, no, I think these were more released
on the same day due to the high profile nature

(23:25):
of the cases. But I don't really see a link
between the two because one is about an illegal poker game,
the others about other individuals using inside information to make bets.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
In the inside information. How much money do they say
was involved here?

Speaker 5 (23:41):
Well, I do know from the indictment that the individual
that provided the information allegedly from mister Rogier. So mister
Rogier allegedly provides this information to an individual. That individual
gives it to other people who then use it to
make bets. And it's alleged that that individual received one
hundred thousand dollars just for providing that information. And so

(24:02):
then it you know, you can surmise that if that
individual is getting paid one hundred thousand, I'm sure that
there were multiple wagers made by multiple people because it's
all information. Like if you're one of the people at
the top of the pyramid, if you had this information,
you're going to tell your web of betters to make
these bets. So I would imagine that the money gain
from that was in the hundreds of thousands. If they're

(24:23):
paying this one person allegedly one hundred grand just for
that info.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
But it seems like it's a drop in the bucket
compared to the fact that sports betting accounts for about
eighty four billion dollars a year.

Speaker 5 (24:35):
I certainly see the juxtaposition, and I don't necessarily agree
with you. You know, like a lot of these leagues, NBA, NFL,
they are now in partnership with these gambling companies. You know,
before it was taboo to bet on sports, right, and
all the leagues pressed against it. They didn't want anything
to do with Now people could bet illegally for you know,
going back to however long. But once it became legalized

(24:58):
in most of the fifty states. I know, it's legalized
throughout the country, but in most of the states it's
now legalized. So these companies essentially got in bed with
these gambling companies to form sponsorships, you know, collaborations whatnot.
I agree with you that it might be a drop
in the bucket, but if you think about it, it's
about the integrity of the game, right, Like you can't
have players taking themselves out voluntarily for the purpose of

(25:20):
getting a bet. You can't have individuals, you know, using
inside information to divulge that prior to the betting public
gets it because it does it does call into the
integrity of the game, and it does call into in
question the actual results of those games.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
So now tell me where it fits in that the
league investigated ros You're in twenty twenty three, but cleared
him when the physician showed he had a genuine foot inflammation.
Does that fit into his defense anywhere?

Speaker 5 (25:49):
I mean, I think so. These a von Brosier's attorney.
You know, first of all, I don't know if he's
going to use the NBA's investigation, but I think he's
going to say, listen, we cooperated with it. We were
clear by the NBA he had a legitimate foot injury.
You know, unless you can establish a direct connection between
you know, this individual and mister Rogier, who he allegedly
got the information from, Yeah, I think that will because

(26:12):
that's going to play in all their defense, Like, how
can you prove that I provided this information? In Rogier's case,
how can you prove that I didn't have a legitimate
foot injury and I voluntarily took myself out of that
game because in fact, I did not want to damage
my career further. You know, these athletes, their bodies are
their temple, right, they're their money makers, and you know,
you can't necessarily fault an individual for taking himself out

(26:34):
of a game with a legitimate injury that could ultimately
affect his future earnings. You know, when it comes to
play on the court.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Jim Trustee, a lawyer for Rogier, said prosecutors had relied
on spectacularly incredible sources rather than actual evidence of wrongdoing,
and that a long time ago we reached out to
these prosecutors to tell them we should have an open
line of communications. Chized Terry as a subject, not a target.

Speaker 5 (27:04):
Right And so normally, you know, as an attorney, you
might get correspondents from the FBI or the federal government,
you know, in a sense that you're a target or
subject of the investigation, or you're just kind of like
an external person you're looking for information from. So it
seems like for mister Rosier's attorney statement that, you know,
because I remember reading articles myself that you know, Rogier
was being investigated by the NBA. They were upfront and

(27:26):
they were forthcoming. And it's my guess is he's probably
a little upset that he said to the FBI, hey, listen,
we're here if anything comes up, you know, I represent
mister Rosier, please come to me before you do anything.
And then next thing you know, he's getting a call
that his client has to do a purp walk. You know,
I think Rogier was at a hotel the morning he
got arrested. So I think that's where the lawyer's ire

(27:47):
comes from, because I've done this myself, where you reach
out to law enforcement. You tell them, hey, you are
represented by counsel, or this individual is represented by counsel,
and if something comes up, let me know. I'll bring
them in. We don't got to do this. Song and
dance will make it a lot easier. I think that's
that's where his eyre is coming from.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
When you're told that your client's a subject, not a target.
I mean, does that often turn into a target not
a subject?

Speaker 5 (28:12):
I guess it all depends on ultimately what information they're
gaining from him. You know, if he's a subject, I'm
guessing that the lawyer said, hey, let's sit down, let's talk.
Here's what the investigation with the NBA did, so on
and so forth, and you know, if something comes up,
let us know. So I would think in that time,
because the federal government, the FBI there, they're powerful. It's
a powerful agency, right and you know they're probably not

(28:33):
going to come after you unless they think they have something.
But I would think if my client's just a subject,
he's not necessarily a target. I'm not necessarily overly concerned
about him getting arrested, specifically, once I've already notified the
FBI that hey, call me, let me know if something's
going to come up, because that you know, we'll take
care of it from there.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
The poker games, I take it that there are illegal
poker games happening across the country all the time. What
made these show worthy of an FBI investigation and end indictments?

Speaker 5 (29:04):
So you're right, there's illegal poker games going around, you know,
even if you're playing for you know, minimum money technically, right,
and that's an illegal poker game. But I think this
drew the fbis I for a couple of reasons. There's
allegations of the mafia being involved in it, right, and
what they were doing is allegedly is okay, you get
this one individual that might lose hundreds of thousands of

(29:24):
dollars at the poker table, and now they're using that money.
The people involved are allegedly you know, distributing it amongst themselves.
They're laundering that money. Further, it's my understanding that when
the individuals didn't pay up, then there was you know,
threats of force, maybe even actual physical force, used. So
that's why I think the FBI is getting involved in this.
Like you said, you're runn of the mill poker game.

(29:46):
But when you have an MBA star, you have you know,
hundreds of thousands, maybe if not millions of dollars at stake,
and then you have alleged mob tized and then also
allegations of people using force to collect on those debts.
That's where they come into play.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Tell how strong the cases are against the defendants from
the indictments.

Speaker 5 (30:05):
I mean, you can't necessarily tell from the indictments, because
the indictments are just gonna list out some basic facts
as they see them, and then the counts they're charged with.
I mean, yes, if everything was all true that they say,
then that's you know, that's a pretty tough case. However,
you know, it's not like discovery has been provided the public.
It's not like certain information has been provided to the public.

(30:26):
So ultimately you can't say whether or not there is
a strong or is not a strong case. I will
say two things about BEF though. Number One, the Feds
have a high conviction rate. I'm not saying every federal
defendant gets convicted, but I would imagine that the Feds
aren't going to come after someone unless they have a
lot of evidence, you know, in their back pockets. Certainly
one of this kind of you know, public nature, right,

(30:47):
a lot of media, you know, a lot of press
around it. And the second part though, to whether it's
a strong case or not, it's always going to hinge
on the credibility of the witnesses. I would imagine that
some of the individuals that have been providing animation from
the government might be cedy. Individuals might not have the
best track record. So if I'm a defense attorney, I'm
going to go full bore attacking that witness's credibility. Say,

(31:09):
you know, how can we believe person A when they've
done this, that, and the third throughout the course of
their life. So I think defense probably have a strong case,
but you can't really tell that from the indictment, and
that still has to play out in court.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
How do you think Billups and Rosier's celebrity would play
into a trial?

Speaker 5 (31:28):
Think get at place huge, right, you know, because you're
gonna get supporters, you know, on both sides of the coin.
You know the fact that you know, Chauncy Bills Hall
of Fame player, current head coach. You know, Terry Rogier,
he's known like that celebrity, You're going to have people
that support them regardless. You know. You look at Sean
Puffy Combs right like, he was alleged to done awful

(31:48):
things and yet he still had his public support or anybody.
I don't want to just use you know, mister Combs
as an example, any high profile defendant. You know, OJ
Simpson still got plenty of public support, right, you know,
and so that is going to play into it. And
I think the defense is going to you know, this
is mister Billbs, hall of fame, career head coach. Why
would he be risking all that on just you know,

(32:09):
a poker game, maybe a poker game he participated in,
but unwittingly as far as you know, it being a
rigged game, or others being you know, losing on purpose.
You know, same with mister Rogier.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
I would think they've both made spectacular amounts of money
in their careers. Billips made about one hundred and six
million dollars in earnings over his career. Rosier made about
one hundred and sixty million. I mean, why would they
get involved in this kind of a scheme? It seems
like small potatoes, you know.

Speaker 5 (32:40):
I you know, I've asked myself that same question. But
I think it goes to two reasons. And I don't know,
you know, I'm not saying I have any rhyme or
reason to believe this, all right, But one, you know,
a lot of the times, at least in mister Rogier's case,
it is a led that he provided this information to
an individual he grew up with, that he had known
since childhood, right, And I think that goes to sometimes

(33:01):
these individuals, no matter how much money, power and respect
that they have, sometimes there's individuals that you grew up
with that you can't you know, I'm not saying you
should cut them out of their circle, but if they're
there for nefarious purposes, you know, sometimes you can get
entangled in that, right And I'm not saying that's the
case with mister Rosier. It could be one of his
best buddies, that's a great person, you just never know,

(33:21):
But I think that's one you get entangled with these
individuals that are up to no good. The other part is,
and I can't say, people might have an addiction, right,
and this gambling addiction could get out of hand. Regardless
of how much money they make. And I'm not saying
that's the case, because I don't think it's alleged that
Rosier even you know, shared in any of these profits.
It's just that he provided this information. So I think

(33:43):
it goes it could be a gambling addiction, or it
could just be you know, individuals, whether they grew up
with them or not, they're just individuals that aren't looking
out for their best interests. That's ultimately how you could
lose that much more. You know, you could risk so
much when you make multi millions of dollars.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
But the FBI said, oh, this is not over or
we're still investigating. Does it look like this is an
instance where other NBA players could be implicated.

Speaker 5 (34:08):
I don't know if it would be anytime soon. I
feel like if they you know, because this is talking
about games from twenty twenty three, I think here we
are in twenty twenty five, we're almost going into twenty six.
So for what they have now, I feel like if
they had more, they would come out with it. That
being said, you're going to start getting now that all
these people are arrested. People are going to flip. People
are going to start talking, and then when that happens,

(34:31):
that may lead to other information coming out. Not saying
it will, but I think it's more likely than not
that if there is another quote quote scandal, this is
just the beginning of it, right, and this is just
going to start to come out, and you might see
it come out in other league NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball,
things of that nature.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
I'm wondering about the timing of this announcement by the
FBI and Federal prosecutors at the beginning of the NBA season.
When the sports betting scheme allegedly curred between December of
twenty twenty two and March of twenty twenty four, and
the rig poker game that Billips is accused of participating

(35:10):
in took place in April of twenty nineteen. So why
announce this on the eve of the NBA season.

Speaker 5 (35:20):
It might just be a great coincidence, or you might
be right in that, you know, here's the start of
the season. You know, here we are, the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, your big seasons about the start, were about
to drop this hammer, you know, to make sure that
all eyes are in connection with this. It could be
a coincidence doesn't seem.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Like it was, though, especially with the fanfare with which
the indictments were announced. Thanks for joining me, Derek. That's
Derek Hogan of Tully Rinky Turn It, and that's it
for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you
can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg
Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

(36:00):
and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law,
and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every
weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso
and you're listening to Bloomberg