As he strongly hinted earlier this month, Terry Rozier has filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against him in the federal case concerning NBA gambling.
On Tuesday (Dec. 23), the NBA star's motion was filed in Brooklyn federal court, though it was given to the case's judge about two weeks prior. He is aiming to have both charges against him — conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering — thrown out.
Rozier, currently free on a $3 million bond, is accused of of telling his longtime friend and co-defendant Deniro Laster that he was going to leave a March 23, 2023 game against the New Orleans Pelicans early, so that Laster could sell that information to other defendants who could then place bets using it. Laster allegedly planned to sell the information for $100,000. During that game, Rozier, then on the Charlotte Hornets, pulled himself off the court after only nine and a half minutes.
Rozier's new argument, advanced by his attorney James Trusty, doesn't argue at all about the facts of the case. As Trusty explained in a Dec. 8 hearing, the motion focuses solely on the law. It argues that, even if everything the government says about Rozier's behavior is true, the facts still don't meet the qualifications laid out in the two charges.
Most of Trusty's motion focuses on a 2023 Supreme Court case, Ciminelli vs. United States, et. al. That decision narrowed the scope of wire fraud statutes in federal cases.
In essence, Trusty's argument is that Ciminelli ruled that wire fraud cases need to involve a "tangible property interest." Just depriving someone of the information they need in order to make a smart monetary decision no longer counts as wire fraud, he continues.
Trusty says that the scheme laid out in the indictment, even if true, simply "deprived the sportsbooks of making informed decisions of accepting certain wagers" because they didn't know that Laster had inside, non-public information from Rozier about his decision to leave the game early. But just depriving the sportsbooks of that information, he says, no longer counts as wire fraud after Ciminelli.
As for the money laundering conspiracy charge, Trusty has a dual argument. First, wire fraud is a predicate to it. So if there's no wire fraud, then there can't be any money laundering. Second, Trusty says that the money laundering conspiracy charge is missing an "essential element" — any hint that his client agreed to it.
While Rozier is accused of teaming up with Laster to count the money they received from their scheme, "at no point is Mr. Rozier alleged to have knowledge of any potential transaction involving those proceeds," Trusty writes.
Prosecutors have until February 2, 2026 to file a response to Rozier's motion.
In other news in the case, prosecutors expressed concern last week that Rozier is paying for Laster's attorney in addition to his own.
In a letter sent on Tuesday (Dec. 16) to Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, prosecutors point out that Rozier is doing two things at once: paying for an attorney for his lifelong friend Laster; while simultaneously having his own attorney make public statements indicating that they want to place responsibility for wrongdoing solely on Laster, while Rozier "didn't do anything."
That situation, they continue, may present a conflict of interest, so they want to make sure both the judge and Laster himself are aware of everything.