[soundman] Your call.
[continues speaking indistinctly]
[indistinct conversations]
[reporter 1] Next to the woman.
Talking to the woman right now.
Coming in the door right now.
Got him. There he is. That's him.
Tim, how'd it go?
[ominous music playing]
Allegations against one basketball ref
of betting on
and even tilting the outcome of games
is rocking the NBA.
[man] Stay behind the barricade!
[anchor 1] Commissioner David Stern
said today
it is the worst situation he has faced
as head of
the National Basketball Association.
This is not anything other
than an act of betrayal.
[news anchor 2] Former NBA ref Tim Donaghy
pleaded guilty
to betting on basketball games,
including games
in which he was officiating.
[anchor 3] This amid allegations
Donaghy may have been working
with the Mafia
in a point-shaving scandal.
An official entrusted
with the integrity of the game,
now said to be receiving death threats.
[reporter 2] Did your client ever make
a call on the basketball court
that was influenced
by his association with gamblers?
There was no suggestion
that he did anything inappropriate
with respect to calling those games.
This is not a situation
where games were manipulated or fixed.
[reporter 2] He denies
that it ever took place?
Absolutely unconditionally.
[producer] We got lunch for Tim, yeah?
Good.
Uh, what are we doing here?
I know what we're doing here, right?
We... We are trying to figure out
about Timmy's games.
[announcer] Tim Donaghy,
one of the officials...
Everybody always asked,
"Did he fix the games?"
"Did he fix the games?
Did he fix the games?" You know.
[anchor] Donaghy's two
alleged coconspirators,
Thomas Martino and James Battista.
He fixed them like a m*therf*cker.
He was the greatest.
[announcer] Good NBA official...
That's my only positive thing
I could say about him.
There was nobody that can control
the whistle like Timmy did.
[ominous music continues]
One night he said it to me...
And I remember he said it.
"I can influence games
six points either way."
[music fades]
[producer] Gotta get 30 more
into it right now. Great.
["Your Sweet Love"
by Lee Hazlewood playing]
♪ Strangers arms ♪
♪ Reach out to me ♪
♪ 'Cause they know ♪
♪ I'm so lonely ♪
♪ Then my mind ♪
♪ Goes back to you ♪
♪ Your sweet love ♪
♪ Sees me through ♪
[song ends]
-["Drinkin' Problem" by Midland playing]
-♪ I call it a solution ♪
♪ Last call gets later and later ♪
♪ I come in here so I don't have to... ♪
[Tim] I did something
that was stupid and unfathomable.
[tense music playing]
I had a great job.
Great family, nice house, great cars.
Man, did I f*ck my life up.
[intriguing music playing]
I grew up in Delaware County.
I loved the game of basketball growing up.
It's all I did, all I dreamt of,
and all I wanted to be a part of.
[crowd cheering]
Growing up outside Philadelphia,
the Sixers were great at the time.
They won a Championship.
[applause and cheers]
-I never missed a game.
-[whistling]
My dad was a successful college referee.
[announcer] The officials? Jerry Donaghy
from Havertown, Pennsylvania. David...
[Tim] You know, I saw the friendships
that he made with other officials.
I saw the excitement that you get
by being a part of the game
at a very young age.
Delaware County's famous for being
where a lot of NBA referees are from.
-[blows whistle]
-T! Right here!
[Tim] Like Joe Crawford was
a legend in Delaware County.
You! Out of here!
[Tim] Then you have Javie,
Strom, Middleton,
Callahan, Washington.
Nowitzki! Knock it off!
[Tim] They were all from Philadelphia,
so I thought to myself,
"If they can do it, why... why couldn't I?"
-[videocassette rattling]
-[inspirational music playing]
[video narrator] Welcome to
the introduction to officiating mechanics.
[referee] This is how you start the clock.
Disallowing a basket. No score.
Shot is made. Touchdown.
Three points.
Travel.
Blocking. Holding. Pushing.
Charging.
[Tim] The NBA gave me a ticket to go out
to California for my first NBA camp.
From there, I was put on the staff
to officiate in the CBA.
[announcer] Personable gentleman,
nice to talk with.
-[crowd cheering]
-[music fades]
[woman] I was a flight attendant,
and Tim was in the CBA,
which are the farm teams.
[calm music playing]
He came on my plane
at six o'clock in the morning one morning,
and he was as cute
and c*ck as all get-out,
and he said, "I'm gonna sit right by you."
And I said, "No, you're not.
You're gonna sit in your seat." [laughs]
And he sat right by me. [laughs]
And so he just instantly made me laugh.
And made me laugh all the way
from Moline to Chicago.
[calm music continues]
We got married on a beach.
I was pregnant and barefoot.
It was just he and I,
right in front of the water.
We gave a disposable camera
to someone who was standing there,
and they snapped the pictures,
and that was it. [chuckles]
When he told me that his goal
was to get into the NBA,
I thought,
"That... That's great. That's fantastic."
"What a neat thing. You know, there are
only 50 of them in the whole country."
So really,
whatever I could do to support him, I did.
[calm music continues]
[Tim] When you're going
through the minor leagues,
there's a lot of lonely days on the road.
And you're saying, "Is this all worth it?"
"Am I gonna make it?
Am I going to be the one chosen?"
The day that he got the phone call,
he called me, and he said, "I got in."
Three words. I got in.
[crowd cheering]
[projector clicks]
-[crowd cheering]
-[announcer 1] Officials tonight.
Paul Mihalak, Blane Reichelt,
and Tim Donaghy.
Mihalak, Reichelt, and Donaghy.
[exciting music playing]
[Tim] My first NBA game
after I was hired was Houston at Indiana.
[announcer 1] And the Rockets win the tip.
[Tim] Reggie Miller, he loved
to hold and grab coming off screens.
He loved to pump-fake
and jump into people.
[crowd cheering]
It was a close game.
[announcer 1] Taking it down to Olajuwon.
Spinning to the middle.
[Tim] I made a call at the end
of the game where Reggie Miller
jumped into Hakeem Olajuwon.
Threw his shoulder right into him.
-[whistle blows]
-[announcer 1] And Olajuwon fouled.
They're gonna call
an offensive foul on Reggie Miller!
Oh boy, that took a lot of guts
by that young official,
and boy, look at the debris
come out on the court...
[Tim] The Indiana fans just went berserk
and were throwing stuff on the floor
for, felt like, two hours.
I kept saying to Paul Mehalik, you know,
"There's only a couple seconds
left in the game."
"Just put the ball in play."
He says, "I can't!"
He says, "It's like a hockey rink
out here. Somebody's gonna get hurt."
[announcer 1] I've never seen
anything like it.
This is my tenth year,
and I have never seen this before. Never.
[buzzer blaring]
The Houston Rockets,
trying to get off the court in a hurry.
[Tim] The supervisor
at the time took the game tape.
He looked at me, and he said,
"We'll find out real quick
if you'll make it in this league."
And we went back to the hotel room
and watched the tape.
And he said it was the right call.
[announcer 1] If this young man's gonna
grow up to be an official in this league,
he's going to have to make the tough call,
and he did the right thing.
[dramatic whoosh]
[indistinct chattering]
[Kim] There's Daddy. [laughing]
When Tim was hired by the NBA,
I could just tell
his whole demeanor changed.
He was like, "Yes."
[announcer 1] Jason Kidd,
beautiful move around Kenny Smith.
It goes, and he's fouled.
[man] You know,
I never really cared for the NBA.
I used to watch it
just because Tim was reffing the games.
[laughs]
[Kim] Tommy has been, and will always be,
Tim's partner in crime.
The two of them fed off of each other.
[Tommy] I made a lot
of bad decisions as a kid.
[tense music playing]
One day, when I was in first grade,
this bird took a sh*t on the pole.
And I'm thinking to myself,
I wanted to taste the bird sh*t.
So I tasted the bird sh*t.
I felt, like, this out-of-body experience,
and I knew I did something wrong.
Maybe early on,
I had a penchant for risk-taking.
[Tim chuckling] One of those guys
that all the girls loved.
Athletic, funny,
good-looking kid that everybody liked.
He had good street smarts.
Easygoing, always made people happy.
You wanted to be around Tommy.
[Tommy] Baba and Donaghy were not friends.
They were acquaintances.
I was friends with Jimmy.
I was friends with Timmy.
-[ominous music playing]
-I was their link.
All three of us went to
Cardinal O'Hara High School together.
Tim was hilarious.
He was the prankster, you know.
He was the guy pulling the fire alarm.
[ominous music continues]
Jimmy was a God-fearing,
churchgoing boy just like we were.
And his family was very strict with him.
Maybe that's why he rebelled a little bit.
And got mixed up with them guys.
[music fades]
[Jimmy] I graduated high school
by the skin of my teeth
'cause I didn't give a f*ck.
But I got a job
at a restaurant called Lombardo's.
Louis Lombardo, Lump, he gave me a job,
and I worked as a waiter.
I saw a different side of the world.
People were drinking and partying
in the '80s.
Coke was good. Money was good.
Everyone was living and loving life.
[announcer] Back at Wrigley Field,
here are the lineups. For the Phillies...
[Jimmy] There was a customer,
wanted a special order.
He goes, "Can I get a dime
on the Phillies tonight?"
Lump took the bet.
[announcer] Double-play ball!
Nice play out at second! And Cubs win!
[Jimmy] Phillies lost that night.
Here I am working,
hoping to make 300 a night as a waiter.
"I said, "That m*therf*cker made
$1,000 not doing nothing!"
[crowd cheering]
And right there,
that started my love for gambling.
-[intriguing music playing]
-A nickel was 500.
A dime is a thousand.
A stick is a hundred thousand.
And if you got into my world,
you deal with balloons,
and that was a million.
Nickel, dime, stick, and balloon.
If you didn't know what they were,
you weren't invited to the party.
The Animals...
We were a group of gambling bookmakers
from the Philadelphia area.
We were young kids, booking, betting.
We became a player because
our information and knowledge hurt people.
We were taking money
out of people's pockets,
and we were good.
[announcer 1] This is a chance
for 'em to put it away.
[Jimmy] Any sporting event
that we can get inside information on.
College football. College basketball.
[announcer 2] Quick bounce...
NBA. We didn't care what league it was.
If it was two f*cking c*ck, it was
about getting the right information.
And I had a good personality
to get information out of people
on a one-to-one basis.
[announcer 3] He's gonna trap all over.
They have nothing to lose,
so it's gonna be a half-court...
-[announcer 4] Oh!
-[whistle blowing repeatedly]
-And a technical foul is called.
-[announcer 3] That's gonna be on Juwan...
-[announcer 4] Hanging on the rim.
-[announcer 3] It won't...
[Tim] When you're hired into the league,
you think everything is done
based on the rules
how they're written in the rule book.
[dark synth music playing]
You quickly learn,
if you're gonna survive,
that's not the way things are done.
[dark synth music continues]
I started to understand
the game within the game
of the NBA, and I'll give you an example.
I was in Philadelphia,
and I'm refereeing Sixers-Bulls.
They were cracking down on a spin move
that they wanted the officials
to call traveling.
And Michael Jordan does the spin move,
and I make the call.
[announcer] Michael on the block, travel.
[Tim] Phil Jackson comes flying
off the bench,
and he starts giving me sh*t.
And I say, "Wait a second, Phil.
You know as well as I do,
that's the spin move
that they're telling us to call."
And he said,
"They may want that play called,
but they certainly don't want it
called on him."
And he pointed at Jordan,
who walked by and just stared at me.
I got in the locker room.
The other referee said,
"They want that call,
but don't call it on him."
The way David Stern structured the league,
we as officials knew that it was better
to treat the star players
better than others.
I just wanted to be the best referee
and advance up the ladder,
and I saw the way guys
that were in the NBA Finals
handled the game.
They didn't call fouls against the stars,
and they were well-respected.
[dark synth music continues]
These people that pay thousands of dollars
to sit courtside here,
they didn't come here
to see Kobe Bryant, LeBron James,
Shaquille O'Neal sit on the bench.
They came to see them play.
The league's your boss,
and you want them to think
you're doing a good job
because, if that's the case,
you're on that playoff roster
that comes out.
With that is an enormous amount
more money and... and respect.
-[knocking]
-[official] Yo! Timothy!
[intriguing music playing]
[Tim] As an official,
if you were on a ten-day trip
and you were with the same guys,
it was like a brotherhood.
You became family, really.
Scott Foster, he was, you know,
like a brother to me.
It was written in the contract
that you couldn't place a bet of any kind.
Whether it was a golf match
or going to a casino.
A lot of the referees went to the casinos
on the road and liked to gamble.
Sometimes we'd play little games
as officials.
A lot of times, starting the games,
we would bet
who called the first foul of the game.
[announcer 1] That's slapped away
by Strickland.
[Tim] Twenty bucks, thirty bucks,
fifty bucks, dinner that night.
We did it one time and got to the two
or three-minute mark of the first quarter,
and bodies were f*cking flying
all over the place.
-A lot of that stuff went on.
-[intriguing music continues]
[announcer 2]
Now he's not getting the call...
[announcer 3] And a technical foul.
Tim Donaghy calls a technical.
And his second one. And Tim Donaghy
has missed several calls tonight,
and when Mike Dunleavy complains,
Donaghy tosses him out of the game.
[Kim] When I noticed
that things were shifting,
he would come home,
and I didn't know
what Tim I was gonna get
when he walked in the door.
I didn't know
if I was gonna get happy, fun Tim
or if I was gonna get
the Tim that dropped his bag
at the bottom of the stairs
and just walk up to his room
and get on the phone.
[announcer 3] And Bonzi Wells
has been tossed,
and Tim Donaghy
with quick whistles all night long.
And Bonzi Wells now joins Mike Dunleavy
in the Portland locker room.
[crowd yelling]
[announcer 2]
You can't touch the official.
Right over the house.
[Kim] Tim, it probably
wouldn't be a very good idea.
My parents still have
nine months left here.
[Kim] I only knew who he was talking to
when somebody called the house phone,
and it was usually Jack.
[people laughing]
[Tim] Jack Concannon was a guy
from Delaware County.
We played golf
three, four times a week together.
Jack and I started betting,
uh... football, baseball.
We just had a lot of fun together.
When Jack would call the house,
I would say,
"Tim, your girlfriend's on the phone."
And he immediately knew that it was Jack
because they talked
five, six, seven times a day.
[Tim] It had 15 plays on it a day
that, win or lose,
it could mean five
or ten thousand dollars.
We kind of went in partners.
He put the bets in,
and at the end of the week,
we would square up.
[intriguing music playing]
And then, I'll never forget,
one time we went to play golf.
Before we played, he said,
"Give me some winners of...
of the games tonight in the NBA."
[dramatic whoosh]
And I looked at the lines in the paper.
I knew who was refereeing the games
because I looked at the master schedule.
I gave him three plays,
and he called me up the next day and said,
"Is it really that easy?"
And I said, "Wh... What happened?"
And he goes, "They all won."
[dramatic whoosh]
[Jimmy] Jack Concannon was booking
with The Animals.
Jack was a nickel better.
Jack's bets went up in denomination.
From him betting a nickel,
and he's up to two dimes or three dimes.
And I'm like, "Jack's not
a two or three dime bettor."
So I'm like,
"Oh. What the hell's going on here?"
[dramatic whoosh]
[Tim] There was a lot
of different information I could use
to make these picks.
Referees would share information
with each other.
Maybe a referee
had an issue with a coach or a player.
Maybe a trainer came into the locker room
before the game,
said a couple of their players were hurt.
A lot of it was inside information.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kim] I was very well aware of the rule
that referees
were not allowed to bet on anything.
I remember telling him,
"You better be careful."
"If you go down, you're gonna take
our whole family down with you."
[Tim] Didn't need the money.
Between stock investments,
between playoff bonuses,
I was making well close to 400,000 a year.
I was near a line
that I shouldn't have been near
and then jumped over it, giving picks
on games
that I was officiating in the NBA.
[Jimmy] I find out that Jack
was betting Timmy's games.
And if he's got that information,
so I take it and run with it.
So if they were betting
four or five dimes a game,
then we'll just bet
ten or 20 times the amount.
He was a cash cow. It was incredible.
-Years later...
-[metallic whoosh]
...I had a major falling-out
with The Animals.
And we went our separate ways.
And that's when I decided to go after Tim.
-[dramatic whoosh]
-[music fades]
-["Forever Young" by Alphaville playing]
-♪ Forever young ♪
♪ I want to be forever young ♪
♪ Do you really want to live forever? ♪
[lively music playing]
Go sit down, b*tch!
Tommy, Patty,
just wanna say congratulations.
I wish you the best of luck.
Going to be a long life.
I hope you have many little kids, honey.
God bless you. I love you, Tommy,
from the bottom of my heart.
Patty, take care of him.
He's the best-paying boss in the world.
-Thank you, I love you. [kisses]
-[music fades]
-[dark synth music plays]
-[siren wailing]
[Tommy] Baba said,
"When is Timmy in town again?"
"I need to meet up with him.
He's in trouble."
I said, "What? Tim?
What do you mean he's in trouble?"
He goes, "Set up a meeting with him."
So I said, "Okay."
[tense music playing]
I remember one time
mentioning Battista's name
to Donaghy on the phone years before that,
and he goes, "Tom, don't even mention
his name on the phone with me."
He said, "I cannot be associated
with anything like bookmaking
or betting or anything like that."
[tense music intensifies]
So I never said that Battista
wanted to meet up with him.
[producer] Why is everybody's story
about the Marriott so different?
Uh...
I think it's a... it's a... it's a, um...
Dave, could we cut for a sec?
[Tim] Tommy called me up and said
he wanted to have dinner with me.
He shows up with Battista,
and I said to him immediately,
"Tommy, what the f*ck is he doing here?
I can't be seen with him."
-[tense music continues]
-[Tommy] He looked at Battista,
and then he looked at me
like he saw a ghost.
We sat down at the table. Battista said,
"Timmy, look,
I know you're giving the games to Jack."
He said he knew
that I had been giving Jack
picks for the last couple of years,
and he was getting those picks...
[ominous music playing]
...and he wanted to continue
to get those picks.
[Jimmy] And I said, "Let's work together."
"But make me the sole guy."
[Jimmy] Battista wrote on a napkin, "2K,"
and he held up the napkin.
He goes,
"I'll give you this. Give them to me."
I made him the greatest deal in the world.
If we win the bets,
I'll give you two dimes.
-You're not gonna pay on your losses.
-[metallic whoosh]
Just f*cking pick me winners.
Give me the right side.
[Tim] Tommy goes to the bathroom.
I was alone with Battista.
He says,
"You don't want us calling the NBA
and telling them what you've been doing."
"Worse yet, you don't want
somebody from New York
visiting your wife and kids in Florida."
[dramatic whoosh]
[Kim] Okay, here's Bridget!
Bridget's first birthday!
[Tim] And when he said that, I was scared.
You know, not really of Battista
but people
that he was most likely dealing with.
[Kim] All right, are you ready?
[Tim] The job I had, the family I had,
I really didn't have a choice.
[Kim and Tim] Yay!
[producer] Had he not made the threat,
would you have bet with him?
No.
No. If it wasn't for that,
I definitely would not have bet with him
because I knew he was just
a... a schmuck and an as*h*le.
Anyone that had anything to do with him
always, you know, moved away from him.
[tense music playing]
Timmy was f*cking thrilled
to work with us. To make money.
[announcer] That's a tough call.
I think it's the correct call...
Of all the f*cked-up things I did,
never threatened him.
You don't win people over
threatening people.
You get farther with honey.
[Tommy] I did not see
Battista threaten Donaghy,
and Battista's pissed off about this
because he doesn't wanna be portrayed
as the type of person
that would go threaten people's families,
and I don't think
he is that type of person.
I know he's not.
To me, it wasn't
a life-or-death situation.
If it was, I would have bailed.
I'm not into that sh*t, you know?
-[dramatic whoosh]
-[music stops]
[Tim] After our meeting
at the Marriott that night,
I was in town to referee Boston at Philly.
[whistle blows]
The day prior,
I was refereeing with Derrick Stafford.
He had said he felt like Mo Cheeks
had no idea what he was doing,
and his heart wasn't into coaching,
and not only that,
Philly was tanking games
for better draft picks,
so they really weren't trying.
So, I told Battista to bet Boston.
[announcer 1] ...rebounding now.
Telfair quickly ahead to Allen.
Allen takes it right at Iguodala for two.
[announcer 2] Boy, that's what I like,
quick up the floor.
[announcer 1] Pierce 0 for 2
to start the game,
and Iguodala goes coast to coast.
Seven-point Philly lead,
their biggest of the night.
-Iguodala, his second steal and basket.
-[dramatic electric guitar playing]
Pierce to Allen, rebound,
and he got fouled.
Donaghy coming in from the outside.
[announcer 2] Boy,
and that booing in Philly.
I don't ever remember
hearing them boo in Philly.
At their own team!
[announcer 1] The Philadelphia
losing streak gets longer,
and Boston climbs to 8 and 13 now
-on the season.
-[buzzer ringing]
[music stops]
After the Boston game,
Battista came to me, and he said,
"Tim's new nickname is Elvis.
Because he's the king."
-[upbeat music playing]
-And he was the king.
[Tim] Battista was placing the bets,
getting the information through Tommy
that came through me.
I would never talk to Timmy.
He had to go through Tommy.
[phone vibrating]
[Tommy] Timmy would tell me
who we would bet on
by my brothers' names.
My brother Johnny moved to Jersey.
He was the away team.
My brother Chuck stayed here,
so he was the home team.
He'd say, "Hey, Tommy, what's going on?
I'm in, uh, Boston."
"Hey, how's Johnny doing?"
Yeah, "How's Johnny doing?"
Or, "Who's he having Thanksgiving with?"
"All right, call me tomorrow."
[Tommy] And I would relay it
back to Battista.
[Jimmy] I made a lot of money.
There was a few million bet on each game
that I was in control of.
I was moving
the most prominent gamblers in the world.
I'd just charge them half, quarter, or 1%.
We're moving millions of dollars a day?
-It was a printing press. Cash.
-[upbeat music continues]
-[laughing]
-[music fades]
[whistle blows]
[announcer 1] Pepsi Center tonight,
the Utah Jazz,
the top dog team
in the Northwest Division at...
[Tim] Prior to this game,
Allen Iverson and Steve Javie
had butted heads for years.
-I'm not gonna see everything, all right?
-It happened so many times.
[Tim] There was an issue
where Iverson actually threatened Javie,
and we felt as a staff
that Iverson should have been suspended.
We decided, before the game,
we were gonna call
palming violations on him.
We knew he did it,
we knew we could call it,
but nobody ever did.
I even called up Javie that day
and told him to watch the game
because we were gonna take
justice into our own hands.
-[announcer 1] ...Iverson.
-[whistle blows]
[announcer 1] And we got
a palming violation.
[Tim] Bernie called the first one.
I called the second one.
[whistle blows]
It was a situation where it was gonna
put Iverson at a disadvantage
and Denver at a disadvantage,
so I told Battista to bet Utah.
[dramatic music playing]
[announcer 1] Nuggets down by just six.
Here goes Iverson. Score!
[announcer 2] He wants an and-one.
He thought Fisher was bodying him.
[announcer 1] Tim Donaghy will not call
a foul when Iverson goes to basket.
[buzzer blaring]
[announcer 1] And the Nuggets, going
to score a season-low 84 points tonight.
[dramatic music continues]
[Jimmy] Some of the games, I was like,
"Oh my God. Oh my God.
Put that f*ck... Don't... "
He was... Some of it was very obvious.
[phone vibrating]
So I'm watching each game
on the edge of my chair.
I need to relax.
Pop a few OxyContins. Chill.
[phone continues vibrating]
[Kim] I always did Tim's laundry
when he came home,
and I went to throw his NBA jacket
in the washing machine.
And I put my hand in the pocket,
and there was
a wad of money about that big.
And I thought,
"Wow, that's a lot of money."
"I don't know
if I want to know where it came from."
[television clicking]
[reporter] John Gotti is
the former Gambino family boss.
Gotti was found guilty April 2nd
of m*rder, racketeering,
tax evasion, and other crimes.
Gotti had escaped prosecution three times,
garnering him the name "Teflon Don."
[ominous whoosh]
[man] I was a member of the team
that prosecuted John Gotti.
[ominous music playing]
of the FBI Gambino squad.
We were involved
with m*rder investigations,
international distribution of drugs,
extortions.
We had a number of wires going on.
One of the peripheral wires
picked up something
about inside information
going on with the NBA.
[Gambino goon] We've got a ref
in our hip pocket.
[FBI detective] What's his name?
[intriguing music playing]
[Phil] Paul Harris was the case agent.
He says, "Phil,
we came up with three names."
[FBI detective] What's his name?
[Gambino goon] Tim Donaghy.
[intriguing music continues]
[Phil] I didn't know Tim Donaghy
from a hole in the wall,
but the fact that
he came up with an active referee
in the NBA was alarming.
He's working with somebody
by the name of Martino
and Battista,
and they do a lot of talking.
And because they do a lot of talking,
there's information
going to the Philadelphia mob.
There's information going offshore.
And there's information going to,
our particular interest,
in the Gambino family.
[music fades]
[Tim] There was always instances
where you're alone
with your thoughts in a hotel room.
And I said to myself,
"I shouldn't be doing this.
This is not good."
"Eventually I'm gonna get caught."
But we were winning.
I was getting $2,000 for a correct pick,
and we're winning, like,
It got to the point
where I forgot about Battista.
I forgot about the threats.
We'll do this to the end of the year.
I'm gonna have fun with it, and it's over.
-[dramatic synth music playing]
-[whistle blows]
I was refereeing with Stafford.
He was buddies with Isaiah Thomas.
I knew Stafford didn't have a liking
for Pat Riley, even a little bit.
And I knew any chance he got,
he'd stick it to him
because he was that type of referee.
[announcer] Pat Riley screaming
for a foul call,
and a technical foul's
gonna be called on Riley.
He yelled at Derrick Stafford.
Rose, on the drive inside,
throws it to Crawford for three! Bang!
The Knicks will win their sixth straight
here at Madison Square Garden.
Timmy called me
after every game was over at night,
and he would say, "Good boy?"
And I would say, "Good boy."
After every game.
Now I had extra cash in my pocket.
I was happy.
Tommy would come to one of the games,
brown paper bag
just like they do in the movies,
and hand it to me.
You know, it's weird
because I was doing it for nothing.
But I will say this,
every time I did drop money off to Timmy,
he would give me some of it.
[Tim] When Tommy came
with that brown paper bag full of money,
we went to the nicest strip club,
like we were rock stars,
that you could ever imagine.
And we'd go to the, like...
the tit... titty bars.
Can I say that on there?
-[whistle blows]
-[Tim] I'm refereeing with Joe Crawford.
A couple of weeks prior,
he had a run-in with one
of the Heat's radio or TV announcers,
and the owner
of the Heat wanted him fired.
[announcer 1] ...officials looking one
another, Tim Donaghy and Joey Crawford.
[Tim] He was the top official
in the league,
and he could basically do
whatever he wanted to do.
I knew any chance he got,
he was gonna stick it to somebody.
[dramatic synth music continues]
[announcer 1] Shot clock is down to three.
[whistle blows]
And Howard is fouled by Posey.
[announcer 2] With Joe Crawford,
you just don't argue.
[announcer 1]
Only the second home-court loss
in February for the Heat in three seasons.
[Tim] We had a big bash for Kim's 40th.
I bought her a pair of earrings
that cost ten thousand dollars.
[Kim] My 40th birthday present
were these earrings.
I've never taken them out
because I'll probably lose them.
[laughing]
[Tim] You know, things that you normally
wouldn't buy, I was just buying.
Mommy, look what I got!
[Jimmy] I could lose
three million one day,
win six million the next day.
I made good money.
I was a fat f*ck,
snorting coke like a rock star.
[Tommy] I was getting Battista
a lot of Percocets.
He was getting Percocets himself.
He was doing a lot of cocaine.
I think I was getting him
like an eight-ball a day.
That was just... part of the problem.
[announcer 1] Arenas splits defenders,
challenges O'Neal.
That's the kind of play Eddie Jordan
would like to see a foul called, but...
[announcer 2] Eddie is not happy at all
with Tim Donaghy,
and he's gonna be very, very close,
but he is...
[intriguing music playing]
[Tim] One time we lost
three games in a row.
Tommy said Battista
called him up screaming.
I didn't know if I was gonna go home
and find my dog strangled,
hanging from a tree somewhere,
you know, as a message.
But bottom line was,
I wasn't fixing the games.
So I wasn't gonna go out there
whether we lost ten in a row
and fix a game.
I had inside information,
and that's all I needed
to make these picks correct.
[music fades]
Get the f*ck out of here!
[suspenseful music playing]
[Jimmy] He has a f*cking whistle
in his pocket.
He has the lottery ticket.
For the record, I bet 47 games with Timmy.
We went 37 and ten.
Thirty-seven and ten by the number.
We crushed the number.
Tim Donaghy, Elvis,
he controlled the outcome.
Elvis was the King of Rock.
And Timmy was the king of fixing games.
[music stops]
[Tommy] We had an agreement at Marriott.
Shut the f*ck up.
The word was "cranberries" that we used.
"Cranberries" was the code.
Shut your f*cking mouth.
Keep it between us.
Stick to the f*cking story.
Keep your mouth shut
and don't tell anybody,
but we all know
that that's not what he did.
[suspenseful music playing]
Battista was giving these picks to guys
that were generating millions
and millions of dollars
for the Gambino crime family.
Battista always wants to say he had
nothing to do with the mob in New York,
but yet he's driving up and down
once a week to drop off or pick up money.
I wasn't a mob guy, okay,
but... did I dine with them at times?
f*cking A, I did.
We were moving serious money.
You had to play protocols.
[suspenseful music continues]
If I wasn't at that table,
"Who the f*ck are you?"
[Phil] We did an analysis of hundreds
and hundreds of phone records.
And they come to find out,
Battista was making money for the mob.
[dramatic whoosh]
Now, was he somebody
who was going to the weddings?
Was he someone
who's going to the funerals?
Was he somebody who was gonna hang out
in the clubs? No.
He wasn't a made guy.
But, whether he wants to admit it or not,
he was making big money
for all those entities.
From what we understood,
somewhere between
[suspenseful music continues]
[music stops]
[Tommy] I was on the beach
in South Beach, Miami.
My phone rings, and it's "unavailable."
So I answered.
"Hi. This is Agent Paul Harris."
It's the FBI.
[tense music playing]
[Phil] Operation Flagrant Foul
was the name of the special investigation.
When law enforcement
comes knocking on your door,
most people have a degree of shock.
Especially if it's the first time.
[Tommy] I sh*t myself.
I got scared shitless.
I didn't eat for a week.
And then when I got home, there they were.
They handed me a subpoena
to appear before a grand jury.
"We'll see you in a week."
[intriguing music playing]
I used to go
to three meetings a day for sobriety.
In the middle of a meeting,
I get a text message. It goes,
"Jimmy, there's two FBI officers
in the driveway. They're looking for you."
I said,
"There's a Dunkin' Donuts up the street."
"I'll meet you there for a cup of coffee."
[tense music playing]
We sat down, say, "Listen, Jimmy,
you need to come talk to us about this
because it's gonna get serious."
"Extortion, money-laundering,
game-fixing."
"You're facing a good 25 years."
"Jimmy, either you get on the train,
or you're gonna get run over by it."
And I'm like,
"f*ck you guys. I'm not a rat."
-[dramatic whoosh]
-[seagulls squawking]
[Tim] Me and my family,
we had moved down to Florida.
-We had a nice house.
-[family] ♪ Happy birthday... ♪
[Tim] Great lifestyle.
[family] ♪ Cha cha cha ♪
[Tim] My kids are all doing terrific.
[Kim] Crash.
Whoa, Meg! Let off! Let off!
[somber music playing]
[Tim] I was on the driving range
at Lakewood Ranch Country Club.
Just getting ready
to break out a new set of irons.
My phone kept ringing and ringing,
and I picked it up.
It was Tommy.
And he just said, "Listen,
I got something I got to tell you."
And I said, "What?"
He goes, "The FBI was here."
"A couple times."
[water sprinklers rattling]
I said to him, "Tommy,
they were there two or three times,
and you're just telling me now?"
[somber music intensifies]
[Kim] He pulled up in the golf cart,
and he came in,
and I remember his exact words.
"That f*cking Tommy."
He would never talk about Tommy like that.
He said, "I have to talk to you."
He was in the fetal position on the bed,
and he said, "I took some money,
and I've been doing some things."
And it just clicked.
I just knew,
"He's betting on his own games."
He was crying, just bawling.
I hugged him.
I said, "You know what?
We're gonna get through it."
"It... It's gonna be fine."
And I walked out of the bedroom,
I shut the door,
and I went into the kitchen,
and I threw up in the sink.
[music fades]
[Tim] You know,
as soon as Tommy called me,
I knew I was screwed.
... run around and go outside.
When you're put in the middle
of something like that, you don't sleep,
-you don't eat, it just... eats you alive.
-[ominous music playing]
-[announcer 1] Down two games to none.
-[announcer 2] And Giambi down swinging.
[man] I was sitting at home
watching the Yankee game.
-[dramatic whoosh]
-I got a call from Tim.
He said, "Can you meet tonight?"
We met at a restaurant.
I could tell he was devastated
and in bad shape.
-[ominous music continues]
-[clattering in the restaurant]
My strategy always coming into a case
instinctually is to fight.
I don't like cooperating. I like fighting.
I like going to trial.
So my initial reaction was,
this is defensible.
And it was defensible
from a legal strategic standpoint,
initially.
It was not defensible
from an emotive standpoint.
[intriguing music playing]
Tim had to confess.
He had to.
Moreover, we didn't know
what the other characters were doing.
I didn't know where Baba was.
He was coming out of rehab.
I knew that Tommy Martino
had been in to the grand jury,
which is always a dangerous sign.
So we had to make a strategic decision
to go in to the US attorney's office
and cooperate fully,
which we did in, like, 48 hours.
It was the quickest
I've ever taken a client in.
[intriguing music continues]
[Tommy] I go up in front of a grand jury.
Prosecuting attorney asked me,
"What were you doing on the phone
with Donaghy for 9,000 minutes a month?"
I said,
"We were talking about family matters."
And he says, "All right, stop right there.
You heard that. He lied."
I guess he wanted me to say
we were talking about basketball games
that he was officiating.
So they slapped me with a perjury charge.
I remember the prosecuting attorney
coming to me at the turnstiles.
And he says, "Martino,
your buddy Tim reffed his last NBA game."
And I thought,
"Holy sh*t, man. We're screwed, man."
"My dad's gonna k*ll me."
[laughing]
-[funky music playing]
-Come on.
Let's go, baby!
[John Lauro] Warren Flagg is
a former FBI agent.
He's my best friend.
I would trust Warren with my life.
[Warren] John Lauro brought me
into this case.
He needed somebody that could match wits
with Tim Donaghy and also prepare him
for the most grueling interrogation
any cooperator would ever have.
So he called the Flagg Man.
[John Lauro] The worst thing
you could do in Tim's situation
is cooperate and not tell the whole truth,
because you get caught in one lie,
this is over.
And you're going to jail
for ten, 15 years. I don't know.
So I said to Tim,
"You can't be a little pregnant."
"You're either pregnant, or you're not."
"A little pregnant,
they're gonna cut your gonads off."
[music ends]
[low ominous music playing]
[Tim] First meeting with the FBI,
Lauro came in with Phil Scala.
Immediately, Scala stood up,
leaned across the table
and pointed his finger
right in my face and said,
"Just so you know, I got John Gotti."
"You're sitting in the same f*cking seat
that John Gotti sat in."
"If you think you're gonna lie to me,
get the f*ck up and leave right now."
[Phil] It was about him saying
that he never threw a game.
"Even though I bet, I never threw a game."
And I says, "Tim, that's bullshit."
The fact that you're betting on the game,
your judgment is impaired and tainted.
[Tim] They had
several United States attorneys
in the room,
FBI agents,
all grilling me about fixing games.
-[ominous music continues]
-I said, "Listen."
"I never fixed games."
"I had one of the best percentages
calling-wise as an NBA referee."
"I was rated third
out of a staff of 60 people."
I said, "How could I be rated there
and be fixing games?"
[dramatic whoosh]
[Phil] Many of the great authors
and philosophers say,
the first time you lie to yourself,
and then you would lie to yourself
a second and third and fourth time,
you become the lie.
[ominous music continues]
You're lying to your wife.
You're lying to your kids.
You're lying to your parents.
You're lying to the people
that you work with.
You're lying to yourself.
And you can never live a peaceful life
when your life
has become nothing but a lie.
In basketball, there are
at least three or four instances
in any game
when you have to utilize your judgment.
[announcer 1] ...determined to get by...
And your judgment is tainted
because you bet on that game...
[announcer 1] Tim Donaghy,
the outside official, made the call late...
[Phil] ...you have to admit
you may have made a wrong call.
[announcer 2] No, I...
I don't know what he saw.
[Phil] And unless you get to that,
you don't have a cooperation agreement.
He came to terms with the fact
that his judgment was, in fact, tainted.
[announcer 1] Wow. That's terrible.
[Tim] I had to sign a document that said
subconsciously I could have made calls
in the game based on the bets.
Now I'm not sure what the hell that meant,
but at that time, I didn't care.
I was signing anything. I was spent, gone.
I just wanted
the whole thing to be over with.
[dramatic music playing]
[Phil] During that minimum
of three years that he was involved,
he admitted betting on 100-plus games.
But nobody in the NBA noticed anything.
If he was throwing the games
and it was blatant,
the commissioner would've known.
His coworkers would have known.
The owners would have known.
The players would have known.
They would've called attention to it then.
Which was the reason why Tim was saying,
"Well, there were other people involved."
And he believed
that it went all the way up the chain.
Welcome
to the National Basketball Association.
[crowd cheers]
[dramatic whoosh]
[Tim] Listen, I called
what the NBA wanted me to call.
If they said,
"Go out and make sure, you know,
you concentrate on this tonight,"
that's what I went out
and concentrated on.
[intriguing music playing]
[John Lauro] David Stern built the league
around a business model
that would highlight certain key players,
certain high-profile teams.
Tim had this incredible insight
into the connection between
the business model and the referees
and the way they reffed games
in real time on the court,
and that's what he's telling the FBI.
[crowd cheers]
[Tim] Every playoff game
meant tens of millions of dollars
for the league, so they wanted the series
to go towards seven games
as often as possible.
If there was a sweep, it was not good
for the league's bottom line.
[announcer 1] The Lakers,
facing a playoff elimination.
The Kings, only one game away
from the NBA Finals...
[Tim] I didn't referee
the Lakers-Kings playoff game.
But that game has gone down
as the worst officiated game
in the history of the NBA.
-[crowd cheering] Defense!
-[announcer 1] Bibby able to...
[announcer 2] Knocked to the ground,
and no foul called on that penetration.
[announcer 1] Lakers hoping to take it
back to Sacramento for a game seven.
That's number five on Webber.
[announcer 2] And this is a terrible call.
[announcer 3] He's in front of him,
and he's gonna come... Oh! An elbow!
[announcer 2] Yes.
He just ran over Mike Bibby.
[announcer 1] Should have been
an offensive foul.
[Tim] Those three guys
that refereed that game
advance and get another bonus
after what they just did?
[buzzer blaring]
[announcer 1] Game seven,
Sunday night, in Sacramento.
[Tim] Where would you ever see
that happen? In what profession?
[intriguing music continues and fades]
[dramatic music playing]
[Phil] A lot of the people
Tim was speaking about...
[reporter] NBA commissioner David Stern...
[Phil] ...you know, there were
some significant names.
I started receiving calls
from FBI headquarters saying,
"We got another lead.
Take a look at this over here."
We had referees who had associations
with management, owners, and players.
We had ten referees we were looking at.
-[dramatic music continues]
-Nine involved with casino gambling.
Betting on sports, we had two.
What the case agents wanted to do was see
if we can corroborate
some of his allegations.
We wanted to put a covert wire on Tim.
[John Lauro] Tim was gonna be
a major player
in a very, very significant
undercover operation.
Tim would be wired up
and go back into the NBA
as a confidential informant.
[Warren] If you wired it up,
they could then expand the investigation.
How many other people
that they may have been dealing with?
It could have mushroomed.
[music stops]
[Phil] As an organized crime investigator,
you don't talk to anybody
unless there's a need to know.
[intriguing music playing]
To me, at that point,
the NBA didn't need to know.
But my supervisor,
he knew a lot about sports.
He says,
"Phil, I think this is a good idea."
We were advised that the commissioner
would definitely assist
in unraveling this.
I said, "All right."
[intriguing music continues]
David Stern, in his culture,
he was the boss for sure.
Nobody questioned him.
We go into his office.
We sat around the table,
and he says, "Listen,
we want to cooperate with you guys."
"We'll give you the films.
You can speak to this person,
and you can speak to that person,
and whatever you guys want, you have."
They gave us access
to this, that, the other thing.
We even interviewed observers.
[reporter] Observers, whose identities
are kept from the officials,
evaluate the performance
of each of the three game officials.
And they said,
"There's nothing wrong here."
"The officiating is right on point."
At that point, you discharge
everything they have to say.
They're basically circling the wagons
and going scripted on you.
We got what they wanted to give us,
but it was bullshit.
-To us, it was bullshit.
-[intriguing music crescendos]
[printing press whirring]
[John Lauro]
As much as I respect Phil Scala,
he made a terrible misjudgment
by going to the NBA and telling them
that we have a ref
who has compromised the game.
[suspenseful music playing]
Phil Scala went into Stern's office.
Immediately following that,
they renegotiated all their contracts
with all the networks
that broadcasted NBA games.
He signed a deal for 7.4 billion dollars.
The NBA shouldn't have gotten that much.
They knew about a bad referee
and the possibility
of other bad referees going down.
But the network's, you know,
dealing with somebody who had information
and didn't tell the other side
what he knew,
which would have lowered
that price significantly.
So somebody got snookered.
[suspenseful music intensifies]
[music stops]
[John Lauro] Tim was ready, willing,
and able to be wired up
and go into the depths of the NBA
to reveal the inside game.
[dramatic music playing]
Time was of the essence.
Because once the story is out there,
nobody's gonna talk to anybody.
Everybody's gonna be hunkered down.
And then, all of a sudden,
there was a leak in the press,
and it blew the cover off
of our undercover operation.
The irony is astounding.
The very person hired
to make the players abide by the rules
is suspected of cheating for money.
Allegations of betting and foul calls
by a veteran referee.
An NBA ref who may have been betting
on the very games he was calling.
[reporter] Longtime NBA referee,
Tim Donaghy, is...
[Tim] My face was
on every TV station across the country.
-Tim Donaghy.
-Tim Donaghy.
Tim Donaghy.
The story was published
in the New York Post.
It was just all over the news.
Well, it is front-page news all over town...
[John Lauro] The headline was, like,
"NBA games fixed."
-"NBA ref under investigation."
-[dramatic music continues]
Hate it for all the people involved.
It's not... It's not fun for anybody.
It's a very serious issue, and I'm sure
they'll... they'll handle it accordingly.
[man] This is one bad guy
who made a big mistake.
He's gonna pay for it.
The NBA will pay for it for a long time.
This is the most serious
and worst situation
that I have ever experienced.
[Tim] People were parked
in front of the house.
Helicopters flying over the house.
[Kim] We lived in a gated community,
but the press paid off the guard
to get into our neighborhood.
I was at a pub, and then all the TVs
started flashing up my picture.
Some kid came over,
and he slapped the New York Post down.
My face was on the front page,
and he said, "Would you sign this for me?"
I was like, "f*ck."
And I signed it. [chuckles]
[dramatic music continues]
[Jimmy] News networks
were parked out front of my house.
If I walked my dog, they were there.
They were up my a*s everywhere.
[John Lauro] I followed
all of the news reports.
I think the press
kind of got the bigger story.
[reporter 1] Former referee
Tim Donaghy's lawyers have served papers
that claim top NBA executives
influenced referees
to make calls to benefit favored teams.
He's a singing, cooperating witness
who is trying to get
as light a sentence as he can.
[reporter 2] There are
a couple possibilities.
A dirty guy who started trying
to deflect the attention from him
to say everybody else was doing it.
Or the NBA is in massive trouble.
[David Stern] The accusations, you know,
that we manipulate games,
those accusations, or the facts
underlying those, they're false. We don't.
People said we're a week away
from the NBA becoming
the World Wrestling Association.
And now you've got coaches,
and they would say,
"I knew that game was stolen."
I thought that was
one of the worst officiated games
I've ever seen. Ever.
I thought it was
an absolute officiating travesty.
Or players saying,
"I knew this guy was leaning on me."
People pay good money
to come watch these athletes play.
They trying to take over
the... [bleep] ...game.
[Phil] But we didn't have
the proactive ability
to get that on tape or corroborate it.
The gag order was out.
[John Lauro] In order to really understand
this case,
you have to know how that leak happened.
I don't know that Stern leaked the story.
I don't know that,
and I'm not gonna say that.
It was not in our interest to do that
or in the FBI's interest to do that.
But it was in the interest
of the NBA to leak the story.
It put an end to the investigation.
[music quietens]
[reporter 1] In Brooklyn today, a former
National Basketball Association referee
pleaded guilty to two charges related
to his role in an NBA gambling scandal.
Tim Donaghy admitted
to betting on games he officiated.
[Tim] I plead guilty
to gambling and wire fraud.
You know,
I definitely did something wrong.
It's probably fair.
[reporter 2] This afternoon
in federal court,
and 41-year-old Thomas Martino
were charged with being
the two men who benefited
from Donaghy's inside information.
[Tommy] I thought
about pleading not guilty.
Battista kept telling me,
"They don't know nothing."
"They don't know nothing."
Because Battista was not saying a word
no matter what.
-[reporter 3] Anything to say?
-No, he doesn't right now. Thanks.
[Tommy] And his objective
was for me not to either.
[soft melody playing]
[Jimmy] I took the sharpest guy I had
when it came to criminal defense,
which was Jack McMahon.
McMahon. M-C-M-A-H-O-N.
-[reporter 4] First name?
-Jack.
[reporter 4] Jack. Thanks.
I always would take the ill*gal gambling
because I gambled for a living.
I claimed it in taxes!
But the fraud and the wire fraud
that was on the table, federally,
and Jimmy was f*cked for life.
So my thing is, "No, no, no."
"I'm not taking it.
I'd rather go to trial."
[soft melody continues]
[Tommy] What changed my strategy
was when the prosecuting attorney
was gonna have my mom go up in front
of a grand jury, and she had cancer.
They were bleeding my family dry.
My brother went up. I went up.
But I was not gonna have them
bring my mom up.
So I just went in.
I'd had enough. I'm glad I did.
I plead guilty to wire fraud.
Using my cell phones to cheat the NBA.
I got, "Tommy perjured-himself Martino."
"Timmy Elvis-the-rat Donaghy."
When push came to shove,
they... they weren't cranberries.
They weren't cranberries.
They folded.
[wedding guests laughing]
[Jimmy] The only one left was me
and my lawyer, Jack McMahon.
I said, "Just f*cking hold out."
"They'll cave."
[dramatic music playing]
[inaudible]
I was tired, exhausted.
All of a sudden, Jack's ripping them,
calling my phone.
Someone was calling Jack
for me to take a deal.
So it was, "All you gotta do
is plead to the ill*gal gambling."
They dropped the most significant things.
[dramatic whoosh]
I'm happy, but I'm thinking to myself,
"Holy sh*t.
David Stern controls everybody."
[dramatic music continues]
The NBA did not want this to go to trial,
whether it was me
or whether it was Battista.
There's no doubt in my mind
that that trial would have been
a bloodbath for the NBA. No doubt.
[crowd cheering]
[Phil] People wouldn't have trusted
the game anymore.
Every time their team lost,
you blame it on the official.
Whether it was right or wrong.
Once you lose integrity,
it's difficult to get it back.
[reporter] Let me read the statement
from NBA commissioner David Stern.
"Tim Donaghy repeated his allegations
against his former colleagues,
NBA referees, as well as the NBA."
"Those allegations
have been fully investigated by the FBI
and the US attorney's office."
"In addition, the NBA appointed
Lawrence Pedowitz to lead
a comprehensive, independent review
of the NBA's officiating program,
and Mr. Pedowitz's review revealed
that the NBA's core of values,
neutrality, and accountability
were not compromised
by anyone other than Mr. Donaghy." Wow.
[music stops]
-[reporter 1] Were you inside?
-[reporter 2] I was not. Were you?
[reporter 1] Yeah, he got 15 months.
[reporter 2] Fifteen months is
what I hear. Three years probation.
[reporters chatting indistinctly]
[cameras clicking]
[solemn music playing]
[Tim] My sentence was 15 months
in a Pensacola federal prison.
I thought maybe
without having a prior criminal record
and, you know, basically cooperating
with the government
that, you know,
maybe I would get probation.
Not in my wildest dreams did I think
I was gonna go to jail for 15 months.
[Tommy] They gave me a year and a day.
I went to MDC Brooklyn.
Battista was there with me.
[solemn music continues]
And I got 15 months which...
Thank you, Lord.
How do you explain to a five-year-old
that their dad's going to prison?
You know? [chuckles tearfully]
I told them that Dad made a mistake
and he took some money
and he wasn't supposed to,
so he had to go to time-out camp.
[laughing, sniffles]
Yeah.
[Tim] Kim had moved out.
She said she wanted a divorce.
I remember driving
over the Skyway Bridge thinking,
you know,
"I should just get out and jump."
[solemn music continues]
[music fades]
[Phil] Looking at it from the big picture,
for what he did and lessons learnt,
I think he got off... easy.
You were dealing with the NBA,
with a lot of power,
a lot of clout, a lot of money.
Stern amassed a small army to make sure
this didn't cause significant damage,
and you wanna know something?
He encapsulated it.
And also, our investigation
into dozens of areas of information
that we got from Tim
led us to the point that it was clear
that we were not going
to indict anybody else.
[ominous music playing]
[Jimmy] Was Phil working for the NBA?
He wasn't working for the government,
because why didn't they
go after everybody else?
Sixty NBA referees
were f*cking questioned on gambling.
-Forty-five admitted to it, yes?
-[gates slamming shut]
[shouting] Did Phil
and the f*cking boys go after them?
Uh-uh. Why? Big Daddy Stern said,
"Put this b*tch to bed!"
They could not get it out.
[ominous music continues]
[producer] Stern offered you a job
in the course of the investigation.
Is that true?
[chuckles] He pulls me...
Stern pulls me aside.
He says, "You know,
I could use people like you."
Now, was... was I looking for a job?
Would I ever entertain a job
from somebody I was investigating?
Not even close.
[Jimmy] They gave Tim his pension.
He got minimal time.
[ominous music continues]
It's make it simple.
He was a rogue official.
Listen, anything that Battista says,
he's full of sh*t.
Nothing that comes out
of that guy's mouth is the truth.
We think we have here
a rogue, isolated criminal.
Most of the refs, we believed,
were honest
in calling the game as they had seen it.
As far as you know, you were
the only ref who was placing bets?
As far as I understand, yes.
[music stops]
I can't stand informants,
and I can't stand rats,
but I really can't stand people
that can't tell the truth.
And it was a cover-up from the beginning.
[reporter 1] The NBA already hurting
due to referee Tim Donaghy's confession.
Phone records show that Donaghy
called a second referee many times
during the 2006-2007 season.
[reporter 2] During the time Donaghy
was betting on games, he made 134 calls
to Scott Foster before and after games.
I think that Donaghy had another person
he was working with, okay?
There's another NBA official.
His name was Scott Foster.
-[intriguing music playing]
-I look at Timmy's phone records,
and, like, on 42 out of 45 games,
Timmy and Scott talked
before games and after games.
A few times at halftime too.
Did it ever come out
of Timmy's mouth to me
that it was Scott Foster? Never did.
But from Tommy, I said,
"Who the f*ck is this guy?"
[Tommy] I was there a couple times
when Timmy called Scott Foster.
I don't know what they were talking about.
He would leave the room to talk to Scott.
[Tim] Foster and I were very good friends.
Probably talked, you know,
strangely as it sounds,
a couple of times a day on the phone.
There were so many phone calls
for no other reason
other than just joking around
and having fun
and talking about different things.
Foster had no idea what was going on,
and the FBI did a full investigation
and cleared him.
He had nothing to do with this.
[announcer] Scott Foster and Pat Fraher
are discussing this.
[Jimmy] It's something
that should have been addressed.
Scott's an NBA official,
still reffing in playoff games right now.
This is a Scott Foster call.
He calls this play.
How can you call that a foul
on Jae Crowder? And Scott Foster did!
Every time I saw him on games, I'm like,
"That m*therf*cking c*cksucker."
[reporter] In other news today,
NBA referee Scott Foster was not charged
in the league's betting scandal,
and the Pedowitz Report confirmed
that Foster was not involved
in Donaghy's misconduct.
[Kim] I know why the Fosters
had to distance themselves from us.
I considered them
one of our closest family friends.
After everything went down, I never heard
from Scott or Paula Foster ever again.
I'm pretty sure that the NBA probably...
-[chuckles emotionally]
-[intriguing music continues]
I'm sorry, I need a second.
Can I stand up? [exhales sharply]
[music stops]
[gloomy music playing]
[birds chirping]
I remember saying to Flagg, um,
you know, "I don't know
what I'm gonna do in my life."
"I don't know how I'll support my kids.
No one's gonna want to be around me."
He says, "Listen. You just, you know,
continue to admit what you did was wrong."
"Everything's gonna work out."
He was right.
[machinery whirring]
I'm coming out of jail in 2009.
Tim Donaghy here to discuss
the Chicago Bulls
and Miami Heat game four.
I sold sports picks.
I hope to share my story with others...
-I worked at a gambling treatment center.
-[announcer] Come on, ref, out of the way!
[Tim] Whatever I needed to do, I did.
[speaking indistinctly]
Eventually started investing
in real estate
and basically being a landlord.
[machinery whirring]
[John Lauro] The federal government wanted
to know how much money Tim made.
I don't know
what it worked out to, 35, 40,000.
[Warren] It was shocking to me
how much money...
[chuckles] ...that he got for what he did.
Millions of dollars
were being made by the mob.
He left hundreds of thousands
on the table.
[Tim] If you're filming my new house,
the Range Rover,
I don't want someone thinking,
"God, this guy's supposed
to be destitute."
"Where the f*ck's this guy getting
all this f*cking money?"
You know what I mean?
[producer] I think that your concern
that you would appear well-off
is only problematic if you made
more money than you say you did.
-Right.
-[producer] Right?
Sure.
[producer] Um... Did you make more money
than you said you did?
I don't know.
[gloomy music continues]
[music fades]
[Tommy] A lot of money was exchanged,
and we had a lot of fun...
and... we got caught.
I hope when people see this
that they can see that I was real
and I
told the truth
throughout the whole thing.
[emotional music playing]
[Jimmy] Listen, I was fixing NBA games.
I know I was.
You can't tell the truth. That's fine.
I go to bed every night,
I sleep like a baby.
[Phil] I think as he grows old
and grows with wisdom,
he can look at the big picture
and say, "You know what?"
"I didn't do the right job here."
And somebody will say,
"Well, that's a fix."
There will come a time
when he grows wise, and he'll say, "Okay."
But that's for him to say.
He'll never ever admit it.
Not on his deathbed.
He'll never admit that.
No one will ever know but Tim.
[emotional music continues]
[Tim] You know, I think I'd be lying
if I said I wish I wasn't still
running up and down the floor
with the greatest athletes in the world.
And a lot of these guys
that I officiated with,
I felt like they were great friends,
and it's difficult knowing
that it's something I kind of threw away.
You know, you wish you still were there.
[emotional music continues]
[producer] I had asked you if you made
more money than you told people,
and you said you didn't know.
Is that honest?
[sucks teeth] I don't recall saying that.
If I said that,
maybe I didn't understand the question.
[producer] Okay. Did you make
more money than you said you did?
Absolutely not.
[whimsical electronic music playing]
[music fades]
Allegations against one basketball ref
of betting the outcome of games
is rocking the NBA.
[Tim] Man, did I f*ck my life up.
[ominous music playing]
Just like the feel-good hit of the summer,
the Manti Te'o story isn't real.
[commentator] A cruel, twisted hoax.
It was the longest winning streak
in history of sport.
[announcer] This is the finest day
in the history of Australian sports!
[man 1] AND1 was making
millions of dollars.
But did they respect us?
[man 2] AND1 basketball, baby!
[Jimmy] Shut your f*cking mouth.
Keep it between us.
Stick to the f*cking story.
[anchor 1] It doesn't get any stranger...
[anchor 2] Donaghy is
under investigation by...
[anchor 3] It's front-page news
all over town.
She physically did not exist outside
of being Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend.
And I was like,
"Boy, that would be f*cking crazy...
[laughing] ...if it weren't true!"
[music fades]
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