Gambling Referee Donaghy Pleads Guilty in Federal Court

NBA commissioner David Stern has spent the past few years trying to clean up the image of his league. It has been perceived that the league was full of things that had no respect for the law.

Turns out all the rules and codes that Stern has set for his players have worked out just fine, but he forgot that league employees also needed to be watched not just the players.

NBA referee Tim Donaghy plead guilty in court on Wednesday to two charges in a nightmare of a case for the NBA.

Donaghy faces up to 25 years in prison for pleading guilty to conspiracy to engage in wire fraud, and transmitting betting information through interstate commerce. In addition to any jail time he might get, he must pay a $500,000 fine, and possibly over $30,000 in restitution to the government.

He will be sentenced on November 9th and is free on $250,000 bond.

The NBA in the meantime must begin to repair its reputation as there is theories all around that NBA games that Donaghy refereed might have been fixed. Its a league that already had conspiracy theorists thinking the playoffs were fixed, so fixing the image will surely be one of the toughest jobs Stern has encountered in his term as commissioner.

August 15, 2007
Posted By Vincent Tapoglia III
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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