Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990 TAG: 9006170140
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICH. LENGTH: Medium
Thomas, selected the most valuable player of the NBA Finals, met with reporters after news reports that he was the target of the investigation by the FBI and Internal Revenue Service.
"I'm mad and I'm angry," Thomas told The Associated Press in one of a series of interviews with local reporters at his lawyers' offices. "I don't even know how this happened. I think [Detroit fans] all know the kind of person I am. No one has given me anything in this world. Everything I've gotten out of this world, I've worked for."
Thomas acknowledged that he has made small, casual bets, such as whether he could sink a long basketball shot. His lawyers said in a statement released late Saturday afternoon that during his nine years in Detroit, he "on three or four social occasions has been involved in impromptu dice games."
The statement continued: "In none of these games would his wagers be considered `high stakes.' He has never been involved in any way with basketball wagering, or any other form of illegal sports gambling."
Thomas was accompanied by his lawyers, accountant and Pistons officials.
"I don't believe you should gamble. I think gambling is one of the stupidest things you can do. You always lose," Thomas said.
Earlier, he met for about two hours with FBI agents at his lawyers' offices to explain his relationship with other alleged targets of the probe.
"The whole meeting today was, `We're sorry we are here,' " Thomas said of the FBI agents. "They informed me that I wasn't a target of their investigation and the only reason they were talking to me was because this story broke."
Sources told WJBK-TV in a report Friday and the Detroit Free Press and Oakland Press in stories published Saturday that a grand jury had subpoenaed checks totaling at least $100,000 that Thomas cashed at a grocery store owned by a neighbor and friend, Imad Denha.
The sources said Thomas and Denha ran craps games with thousands of dollars at stake at unspecified times at their homes in Oakland County's West Bloomfield Township.
Asked about that allegation, Thomas shook his head, muttered a four-letter expletive, and said, "No . . . I can count on one hand the number of people that have been in my home."
Thomas said he called the FBI about 12:30 a.m. Saturday after arriving home about 1 1/2 hours earlier.
"I came home and my wife's standing in front of the TV set crying," he said. Thomas added that Friday was his son Joshua's second birthday.
Thomas said he receives a monthly allowance from his accountants, and Denha - the godfather of Joshua - cashed the checks, ranging from $2,000 to $3,000 each at his Center Line grocery store. The checks signed by Thomas surfaced during an audit of the grocery store, he said, adding that the checks did not go toward gambling debts.
"These checks were my walking around money for the last three years," he said.
Authorities have linked Denha to Henry Allen Hilf, the central figure in the gambling investigation, the sources said. Federal authorities consider Hilf to be Michigan's largest bookmaker, and Denha is a suspected money launderer, they said.
FBI agents raided Hilf's condominium twice in January 1988 and seized betting slips, adding machines, telephones, lists of telephone numbers and about $60,000 in cash and travelers' checks, WJBK reported. Wiretaps of Hilf's condominiums linked Denha to the investigation, the station said.
Hilf has not been indicted or charged to date.
The sources said Thomas' name was added to the investigation when Pistons teammate Mark Aguirre met with a former FBI agent to express concern about his boyhood friend's associations with gamblers.
The sources said Aguirre met with former agent Ned Timmons when the Pistons were playing Chicago for the NBA's Eastern Conference championship. Timmons gave the information to investigators, the sources said.
Thomas said the FBI agents who met with him said they never spoke with Aguirre. He also said Aguirre never had spoken with him about gambling concerns.
Aguirre never spoke directly with the FBI, Thomas said.
No further meetings between Thomas and federal investigators were planned, one of his attorneys, John Caponigro said, adding that Thomas would meet with investigators whenever they wanted.
by CNB