Gaming the Game

by Sean Patrick Griffin

  Donaghy’s accusations were put directly to his close friend and fellow cooperating government witness, Tommy Martino, as can be gleaned by an FBI memo summarizing the exchange: “After the meeting [in the Marriott], all three got into a car. Baba acted like he was a savior who was there to help Donaghy [who had complained of Jack Concannon’s delinquent payments to Martino during the meeting in a side conversation]. Martino never heard Baba threaten Donaghy in any way. Martino had the impression that Donaghy wanted to provide the picks to Baba for Donaghy’s own financial gain. Martino was not aware of Baba ever threatening Donaghy that he was going to hurt Donaghy or tell the NBA about the betting.” By the first week of August, authorities had vetted Donaghy’s various claims and perhaps sensed where he was going with these assertions. In the ensuing weeks and months, the federal government incorporated explicit statements into court filings making it plain that Donaghy was always a willing participant—and that all three men were equally culpable actors—in the scheme.

  Though the various threat allegations made by Donaghy carried little sway with the authorities as they prepared to charge the former ref and his co-conspirators, Jimmy Battista would have to deal with them later when they entered the public arena, if only in his personal life. For now, Battista was simply waiting—and hoping—for the call to let him know he was finally going to be arrested.

  Footnotes

  Tommy Martino attended three proffer sessions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York: July 26th, August 6th, and August 9th.

  The situation was chronicled in the Daily News (NY) on July 27, 2007, by Mike Jaccarino, who wrote: “Here’s the first look at the reputed small-time bookie behind disgraced referee Tim Donaghy and the NBA scandal. James Battista, who attended the same Pennsylvania high school as Donaghy in the early 1980s, is in the eye of the illegal gambling storm that has rocked pro basketball, but he was calmly walking his Shih Tzu when the Daily News tracked him down in an affluent Philadelphia suburb. ‘No comment,’ Battista said gruffly. ‘Stay off my property.’ Later, Battista softened somewhat and emerged from his brick Colonial with a bowl of cold water for the reporter’s dog, who was along for the stakeout.”

  It goes without saying that by cooperating with federal authorities, Ruggieri was, like Martino, essentially cooperating against Battista, if only because Battista had opted to keep quiet. Importantly, Ruggieri’s version of events is almost precisely the same as Battista’s regarding numerous consequential matters, such as: Concannon seeking Ruggieri out; mimicking Concannon’s bets on games Donaghy was officiating (without any explicit discussion between Concannon and Ruggieri in this regard [i.e., Ruggieri and Battista simply put ‘two-and-two together’]); Donaghy’s switch from Concannon to Battista, and the reason for it; and mimicking Battista’s bets on games Donaghy was officiating.

  I say “so-called” inside information because many of the trends Donaghy described for authorities are precisely the sorts of things to which the world’s sharps are also privy (based on analyses from their research teams, computer models, and informants within various relevant spheres). For example, referee-player, referee-team, referee-coach relationships and the like are quite seriously analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by those who bet for a living, and who are placing big money on games. That such persons may not be privy to the nuances of why, say, referee A has a demonstrated history of calling B fouls, especially against player C or team D, is irrelevant for the purposes of wagering. All that matters to the bettor is that such causal relationships are factored into the betting analysis for that particular game and wager. The general public, including Donaghy, would likely be awestruck to witness how much time, energy, and research goes into the assessments conducted by, or at the behest of, the world’s heavyweight bettors.

  Individuals in the sports betting world, especially sportsbook managers, were in a tight spot when it came to the NBA betting scandal. If they admitted to having heard about the scheme and/or witnessing odd line movements, etc., during the scandal, they would have had to explain their lack of inaction. Indeed, their possible culpability could have been revisited if it was suspected they not only knew of the scheme, but profited from it. On the other hand, if these individuals claimed they did not notice the wild betting line swings that took place for Donaghy’s games during the 2006-07 NBA season, their reputation and credibility would be jeopardized.

  Former N.B.A. Referee Pleads Guilty

  THE ANXIETY CAUSED by not knowing when he’d be arrested was driving Jimmy Battista crazy as August entered its second week. He was also hoping he’d get arrested while his family was still down the Jersey shore, and greatly feared the prospect of having his kids watch their father hauled out of their home, possibly with reporters and cameras all around as he got whisked away. “I got a call on August 14th,” Battista says, “to be in Brooklyn the next morning by eight to turn myself in. I was ecstatic; my kids wouldn’t have to see me being locked up!”

  August 15, 2007, would turn out to be a landmark day in the history of U.S. sport, but for Battista the appearance before a federal judge regarding a criminal conspiracy didn’t have quite the sobering effect his attorney, Jack McMahon, expected it would. When McMahon met with his client to take the trip to the U.S. Courthouse in Brooklyn, he was shocked and furious to find Battista wearing khaki shorts, a golf shirt, and sneakers.1 McMahon yelled at him, “You are going before a federal fucking judge!” Battista didn’t understand McMahon’s outrage and, to the contrary, thought it was absurd to get dressed up to be arrested as if it were a wedding or other event to be celebrated. There was no time for Battista to get changed into something more proper for the court appearance, anyway, and the men ventured up the New Jersey Turnpike in McMahon’s sparkling foreign SUV. When they arrived, it soon became clear the day would hold some surprises.

  “Me and Tommy and our lawyers met outside the courthouse with [FBI agents] Gerry Conrad and Philip Scala,” Battista says, “and they took us to Starbucks because the system wasn’t ready for us. [FBI case agent] Paul Harris was with Elvis over in court. They already had his deal all worked out, which we knew nothing about.” Indeed, as Battista and Martino waited to be arraigned, Tim Donaghy was in Judge Carol Bagley Amon’s 10th-floor courtroom pleading guilty to two felonies: conspiring to commit wire fraud, and conspiring to transmit gambling information across state lines.2 The deal also required Donaghy to forfeit thirty thousand dollars as proceeds obtained from the betting scheme. The former referee faced a combined maximum of twenty-five years in prison and five hundred thousand dollars in fines. The Donaghy cooperation agreement was drafted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Siegel and Jeffrey Goldberg, the latter of whom would take over the case when Siegel left the Justice Department days after Donaghy’s guilty plea. Siegel would miss out on quite a bit of drama by leaving in advance of the sentencing phase of Donaghy’s process, which would play out over the next eleven months. Before his departure, Siegel had been privy to at least one considerable area of dissension between Donaghy and his federal handlers.

  Included within the charging document was a line which read, “Donaghy also compromised his objectivity as a referee because of his personal financial interest in the outcome of NBA games.” Donaghy had insisted to authorities that he knew so much “inside information” that he didn’t’ have to throw or manipulate games. Phil Scala says he and his colleagues told Donaghy that even if this was true, “Once you bet on a game you’re officiating, your judgment is impaired. When your judgment is impaired, your decision making is damaged.” Donaghy did not want to concede this line of reasoning, says Scala. “We went back and forth with that a hundred times. He didn’t want to make that admission. He would say, “You don’t understand how easy it was, blah, blah, blah.”

  After the Donaghy proceedings were sufficiently through, Battista and Martino were brought into the system. “Eventually,” Battista says, “we went over to the federal building, got strip searched, a
nd had our pictures taken and everything. They had Tommy in one room with four agents, and three agents with me in another. The guys with me were all young, in their thirties or early forties, and all we talked about was sports and gambling. It was August 15th and there was a month-and-a-half left in baseball, so we were talking about the Phillies and the Mets a little bit. We had a good time going back and forth about gambling, the right numbers, and who I liked for certain things. Then, one of them asked me about his fantasy football team for the upcoming season. He had a sheet of paper and I wrote down the guys I thought would produce the best numbers that year, and I wished him luck. Finally, we got the call to come down to the courthouse. We had ankle bracelets on us and everybody in the media was waiting for us; it was a show. They told us we’d be in another holding cell for an hour. They put me and Tommy in a cell together in the courthouse. Tommy was breaking down crying after Gerry Conrad told us that we’d be going to jail for a long time. I asked Gerry to leave it alone, because Tommy was a mess. When we were left alone in the cell, Tommy told me, ‘I know Elvis told them everything,’ and I said, ‘Well, we’ll find out.’ ”

  Jack McMahon was killing time waiting for Battista and Martino to be brought into court, and took the occasion to satisfy his curiosity regarding one salacious aspect of the case. “Right in the beginning when I first met Jimmy,” McMahon says, “I was saying to myself, ‘Is there anything to this “mob” stuff?’ I didn’t think so, but I didn’t know. I happened to be with the FBI guys in the courthouse as we were waiting for Jimmy to come up, and I asked them, ‘Is there anything to this stuff about the Gambino crime family?’ and they said, ‘Absolutely not.’ I mean, they were adamant that there was no organized crime connection. They told me the only reason the name ‘Gambino’ was ever brought up was because the scheme came up on a Gambino wiretap.” Indeed, federal authorities would never reference organized crime throughout the numerous proceedings and filings that ultimately spanned more than a year.3

  Eventually, Martino and Battista went separately before Judge Amon to be arraigned on wire fraud charges, were released on two hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond, and told they would likely be indicted within thirty days. “We left the courtroom,” Battista says, “and then I had to do a piss test. When we were done with everything and were about to come out, there was this older Irish guy working in front of the courthouse who said, ‘Listen, fellas. We’re going to take you to your car. But, you’re going to see something that you’ve never seen before in your life. There are about a hundred and fifty news reporters and TV crew people waiting for you to come outside. You don’t have to smile; just maintain your composure and walk straight to your car.’ I was thinking to myself, ‘It can’t be that bad.’ Well, there was probably a hundred and fifty-one! You couldn’t move, and getting through there was like parting the Red Sea. They had to walk us about a hundred yards to our car, and the whole time I was thanking God Denise didn’t come.”

  That Denise had not seen him arrested, and didn’t witness the mayhem outside the U.S. Courthouse in Brooklyn, wound up being only temporary “wins” for Battista. Within weeks of his arraignment, Denise again revisited how to handle the seemingly constant problems Jimmy was causing for her and the kids. “By now,” Battista says, “my name and picture were everywhere, and I was constantly in the news. She asked me to leave the house, so I rented an apartment really close by. In fact, it was right down the street from the Dunkin Donuts where I spoke to the FBI agents the first time. I’d still come home every morning at seven and get the kids ready for school, pack their lunches and everything. Denise would go off to work every day, and I would do stuff around the house until the kids came home. I was Mr. Mom. I’d do the laundry, make dinner, and all that stuff; I just wouldn’t sleep in the house.”

  Battista was very much looking forward to getting the criminal justice process moving so that he could at least get on with his life. “I was supposed to be indicted by September 15th,” Battista says, “but they called on September 8th and said they wanted a ninety-day extension to December 8th.4 I was frustrated, but at least I wasn’t in jail. I was going stir crazy and just wanted to get out of the house, but I filled out over forty job applications and no employer would hire me. The thing I had built my whole life around—the thing I knew best—was gambling, and that was out. The other thing I was trained to do was work in the restaurant business, but I didn’t want to get back into that environment fresh off of giving up drugs and alcohol.”

  Ever since the seminal New York Post article back in July, Battista paid close attention to news regarding the probe, and got into a daily routine of searching certain Web sites to keep abreast of any developments. He was particularly interested in the August 21st announcement by the NBA that the league was initiating an “independent review” of various league policies relating to gambling and officiating. The review was to be led by Lawrence B. Pedowitz, a lawyer who was formerly Chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Battista, though, wanted no part of assisting that effort because he didn’t believe for a moment that the NBA wanted to hear the true extent and duration of the scandal, particularly since so many other people in his line of work had caught on over the prior four years. The former pro gambler was of the opinion that if vast segments of the gambling underworld knew about the can’t-miss bets on Donaghy’s games, somebody in the league had to have known—or at least must have heard the buzz—about wagering activity on games Donaghy was officiating. Battista had witnessed sportsbook officials, some of whom he was certain had known about—and profited from—the scheme, feign ignorance about the ridiculous betting line movements on Donaghy’s 2006-07 games when the scandal’s basic framework became public knowledge. He thus did not envision the NBA’s “investigation” getting any closer to the truth, since Battista could only imagine what implications there would be for the league if it concluded (let alone announced) that one or more referees were either active in, or privy to and/or profited from, the influencing of games by one or more referees. “You’re talking player’s contracts and clauses being affected, teams not making the playoffs and losing revenues, fans pissed at the league for not preventing a rigged product from being put out there. How could you even start to calculate the losses to all sorts of people who could sue? In my eyes, there was no fucking way the NBA was ever going to document Elvis or anybody else fixing games.”

  Now with the NBA ostensibly poking around for information about the scandal in addition to the FBI, Battista continued to speak with Tommy Martino to see if he was still “cranberries.” Martino unsurprisingly kept lying to Battista, insisting he had not spoken to authorities, leading Battista to maintain hope he could somehow beat whatever case was compiled against him. As fall 2007 started in earnest, the gambling world kicked into high gear as always; it was the prime betting season. College and pro football were in full swing, the NBA season was set to kick off in late October, and for pro gamblers there was essentially no down time ahead until the Super Bowl. It would have been understandable if Battista pined for a return to the action, the profits, and the acclaim to which he was accustomed all those years, but times had changed for good. The Sheep—the onetime hustler, book-maker, gambler, and mover—was no more. All that remained for Jimmy Battista was finding resolution with the looming criminal case against him, and working on returning to the person he was before his life spiraled out of control.

  “The NBA season was just about to start up,” Battista says, “and the news about the scandal was still going on. People were speculating about how many referees were involved, and whether Elvis fixed games. In September, a representative from the NBA contacted Jack McMahon to see if we were going to fight whatever charges were brought against me, and if they should prepare to look at other referees. Jack told him he didn’t know what we were going to do yet because I hadn’t been indicted. The fall was good for my family life. Sobriety was good; everything with me and my
kids was great, and my wife and I started working things out. After a month or two with me living outside the house, Denise said it was silly to be paying rent, and that I should just sleep in the basement at home as we worked things out. I hoped to change her opinion of me, and wanted to be around my kids.

  “Throughout October, November, and December 2007, I had no idea what was going on. I was supposed to be indicted this time by December 8th, but the U.S. Attorney’s office called during the first week of December and asked for another extension. They said I’d be indicted within sixty days, by February 8 th . I just wanted it to happen. All this time, I couldn’t travel anywhere, I had to go into downtown Philly once a week to take a urine test, and an FBI agent was assigned to follow me.” Battista noticed the FBI agent was tailing him starting back in the spring, but didn’t approach the man until just after his August 15th arrest. “After my arrest,” Battista says, “I approached the driver who had been following me since April the next time I saw him, and he said he was with the federal government and that they just wanted to know where I was at all times. I used to see him every morning at Valley Forge Park, where I’d walk for exercise. He’d usually keep his distance, but we’d wave to each other. We’d be the only two people in the park at five-thirty in the morning in the rain! It got to the point where if I slept in, he would ask me why I was late for my morning walk.