PHILADELPHIA — Federal prosecutors charged 20 people on Thursday, including three former DePaul players, in what they called a betting scheme to rig NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games.
Of the defendants, 15 played basketball for Division 1 NCAA schools as recently as the 2024-25 season.
According to a report by NBC5 Chicago, Jalen Terry, Da’Sean Nelson, and Micawber Etienne are among the DePaul players charged. The station also reported that former Bulls player Antonio Blakeney was also charged.
The other five defendants were described by authorities as fixers.
For his role in the scheme, prosecutors say Blakeney, 29, received a onetime cash payment of $200,000, which another defendant dropped into a storage unit Blakeney had in Florida. Blakeney later went on to recruit college players to shave points in NCAA games.
According to the indictment, some of the bets placed at Rivers Casino in Philadelphia were for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Blakeney, a 6-4 shooting guard from LSU, played two seasons in the NBA after signing with the Bulls as a free agent in 2017. He averaged 7.5 points and 1.8 rebounds over 76 career games.
The Bulls declined to comment.
Other alleged fixers include one man who prosecutors say worked in the training and development of basketball players. Another was a trainer and former coach, one was a former NCAA player and two were described as gamblers, influencers and sports handicappers.
The charges, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, include wire fraud.
In the 70-page indictment, authorities say the fixers recruited the college basketball players with “bribe payments” usually ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 per game.
The indictment follows a series of NCAA investigations that led to at least 10 players receiving lifetime bans this year for bets that sometimes involved their own teams and their own performances. And the NCAA has said that at least 30 players have been investigated over gambling allegations.
More than 30 people were also charged in last year’s sprawling federal takedown of illegal gambling operations linked to professional basketball.
Contributing: USA Today Sports