LOS ANGELES \u2014\u00a0Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas and a half-dozen other people are alleged to have run high-end, illegal poker games at a Los Angeles home rented by the player known as \u201cAgent Zero,\u201d federal authorities said Wednesday. <\/p>\n
The eight were charged in connection with games conducted from Sept. 12, 2021, to July 20, 2022, charging documents say. <\/p>\n
Arenas “would rent out a residence located on Gable Drive in Encino,” a suburban neighborhood of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, “for the purpose of hosting illegal poker games,” prosecutors said in court records.<\/p>\n
While hosting a cash poker game isn’t illegal by definition, the operation crossed into a criminal act as organizers would “collect a ‘rake’ \u2014 that is, a fee the house would charge from each pot either as a percentage or a fixed amount per hand,” according to charging documents.<\/p>\n
The operation even included a poker felt labeled “ARENAS POKER CLUB” with the image of Arenas in his basketball uniform and the famed No. Zero, officials said. <\/p>\n
Arenas pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Wednesday, and he was released on $50,000 bond, the Justice Department said.<\/p>\n
Arenas played 11 seasons in the NBA, including parts of eight campaigns for the Washington Wizards. <\/p>\n
For a three-season stretch from 2004 to 2007, Arenas was one of pro basketball’s most prolific scorers, pouring in 25.5<\/a>, 29.3<\/a> and 28.4 points<\/a> per game in those years.<\/p>\n But his ‘ NBA career might also be as well-known for a weapons incident <\/a>with Wizards teammate Javaris Crittenton in December 2009<\/a>.<\/p>\n Also charged are: Yevgeni Gershman, Evgenni Tourevski, Allan Austria, Yarin Cohen, Arthur Kats, Ievgen Krachun and Valentina Cojocari, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n They were to appear in court Wednesday, but online court records Wednesday afternoon did not show the appearances or whether pleas were entered. <\/p>\n The card players were treated well at games, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n Gershman “would hire young women who, in exchange for tips, would serve drinks, provide massages and offer companionship to players at the Gable House,” according to the indictment. <\/p>\n And in turn, Gershman, Tourevski, Austria and Cohen “would charge the woman a ‘tax’ \u2014 that is, a percentage of the women’s earnings from working the games,” according to the charging document.<\/p>\n Those four were also responsible for hiring “chefs, valets and armed security for the illegal poker games,” prosecutors said.<\/p>\n The games involved dozens of people, as exemplified by a July 19-20 get-together in Encino, “which included approximately 26 players and over a dozen staff working the game,” the charging document said.<\/p>\n The defendants were picked up without incident Wednesday by Los Angeles police and agents with Homeland Security Investigations and the IRS.<\/p>\n Andrew Blankstein reported from Los Angeles and David K. Li from New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014\u00a0Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas and a half-dozen other people are alleged to have run high-end,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":106233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-106232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114945142456558903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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