Jalen Terry and Da’Sean Nelson were indicted on federal charges that include bribery in sports contests, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aiding and abetting, federal prosecutors in Philadelphia said Thursday. The indictment alleges that in or about February 2024 the defendants “agreed to fix an upcoming DePaul game in exchange for bribe payments.” The scheme continued throughout several Big East conference games, the last being the matchup on March 5, 2024, against St. John’s. 

Federal prosecutors say they have charged more than 20 people, including 15 former college basketball players. The other five defendants were described by authorities as “fixers,” the people who contacted players to arrange schemes for money to get them to shave points or influence game outcomes in other ways.

None of the players indicted are competing today. 

Former DePaul player Mac Etienne was indicted in a separate criminal complaint. Former Chicago Bull Antonio Blakeney, Isaiah Adams, Elijah Gray, Corey Hines and Diante Smith also have criminal complaints against them.  

Fixers would place bets that would earn players from “$10,000 to $30,000 per game.” Before the February 2024 Georgetown game, the defendants communicated via text to ensure that the players agreed to participate in the scheme: “Etienne texted defendant Smith, ‘just talked to them it’s a lock ima call you after practice,’” the indictment said.

U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said in a press conference in Philadelphia that this incident “spanned three years and eventually enveloped 17 NCAA Division I men’s programs.”

The indictment references several DePaul games that were “fixed” by players to underperform to cover their first half spreads and cash in. An unidentified “Person 6” was part of the point-fixing at DePaul, prosecutors say.

“When criminals pollute the purity of sports by manipulating competition, it doesn’t just imperil the integrity of sports betting markets. It imperils the integrity of sport itself,” Metcalf said. 

First half spreads are when the “first half wager” is determined by the score once a game reaches halftime. A halftime wager, for betting purposes, resets the score of a game at 0-0 at halftime of a game,” according to Caesars’ “How to Wager Guide.”

“When individuals choose to manipulate fair competition, they do more than commit financial crimes. They erode confidence in institutions that bring Americans together,” FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey said at  Thursday’s press conference.. 

No current DePaul student-athletes were members of the 2023-24 team. 

“When we arrived at DePaul, this was an entirely new group of players and a mostly new staff,” said Chris Holtmann, the DePaul men’s basketball head coach, at a post-game press conference on Jan. 16. “None of our current players were involved in that situation, and it all occurred before we got here.”

DePaul released a statement following the indictment and reiterated their longstanding commitment to educating student-athletes about the dangers and consequences of sports gambling.

“DePaul University is deeply disappointed that former student-athletes were named in the indictment for alleged gambling activities during the 2023-2024 men’s basketball season,” DePaul communications told The DePaulia in a statement Thursday. “The university will cooperate fully with any investigation.”

The NCAA issued its own statement after the indictment was made public.

“Protecting competition integrity is of the utmost importance for the NCAA,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in the statement issued Thursday. “We are thankful for law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports.”

Although student-athletes can now earn money through Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) sponsorships, game fixing can still be attractive for players who are not high earners. “They’re much more susceptible to bribes because they have less income to lose,” said Noah Henderson, director of the sport management program at Loyola University Chicago. 

That vulnerability is heightened when illicit payments eclipse what those athletes can realistically earn through legal channels, a dynamic that helps explain why some still take the risk despite the availability of NIL opportunities.

“They’re being offered more money than they’re making through NIL, more money than they’re making through endorsements, to essentially fix games,” said Brandon Grant, attorney at Murphy, Carter, Gilbreth & Enright. He is a DePaul law school alum who authored a piece on sports and gambling for the DePaul Journal of Sports Law in 2022.

“College sports has been very susceptible to it because paying these players is way more lucrative when they’re in college as opposed to the professional salaries that they all make,” Grant added.

This financial disparity, he and others say, helps explain why lower-earning college athletes are often targeted in these schemes. The players targeted in this operation were “role players and rotational players” that earn less than “star players.”

“Thirty thousand dollars means far more to someone making $60,000 a year playing basketball than to someone earning $1 million a year,” Henderson said. 

During the 2023-24 campaign, DePaul head coach Tony Stubblefield was fired in January 2024 and Matt Brady, special assistant to the head coach, was appointed interim head coach for the remainder of the season. The Blue Demons ended their season with a 3-29 overall record and 0-20 in Big East play. 

Stubblefield spent three seasons at DePaul and is now an assistant coach at the University of Oregon. Brady spent a season at DePaul and is now an assistant coach at Boston University. Current DePaul head coach Chris Holtmann was hired in March 2024. 

Holtmann noted that after his hiring there was around “95% new staff.” 

The first game mentioned was against the Georgetown Hoyas on Feb. 24, 2024. “The players agreed to underperform in and influence the first half of the Georgetown game so that DePaul would not cover the first half spread,” the indictment said. 

The Blue Demons lost that game by one point, 77-76. 

Defendant Marves Fairley, one of the fixers and a sports influencer that actively promotes sports betting, placed “at least $27,000 in wagers with sportsbooks on Georgetown to cover the first half spread.” 

Fairley was indicted in New York for another sports betting incident on Oct. 23, 2025.

Shortly after the game, Jalen Smith, another fixer, traveled to Chicago and delivered $40,000 in cash to make the bribe payments owed to the defendants Terry and Nelson. Smith was actively training and developing local basketball players for professional scouting combines during the scheme.

The game between DePaul and Butler on March 2, 2024, was also “fixed.” According to the indictment, some of the defendants placed “at least approximately $123,789 on Butler to cover the first half spread. To increase the profitability of their scheme, these wagers included ‘parlays’ on this game along with other games that the schemers had fixed by bribing players.” 

Butler won that game at Wintrust Arena, 82-63. 

In the game against St. John’s, the defendants also underperformed and influenced the first half. 

During the game, Smith texted Etienne to complain about a player not involved in the scheme performing too well, saying that player needed to “chill the f— out.”

The defendants would later keep the ball away from the player to prevent him from scoring, the indictment said. 

Once the 2023-24 season concluded, Terry and Nelson transferred to Eastern Michigan University, where they continued to fix games. According to the indictment, Nelson and Terry would recruit leading scorers to manipulate the score. In a game against Oakland University in November 2024, the defendants schemed to lose the game by eight points. 

The indictments touch on growing concerns about the vulnerability of player-specific betting markets. Grant said scandals like this could push sportsbooks to rethink those offerings. “I think we’ll eventually see legal books stop offering individual player markets,” he said.

While the NCAA already provides mandatory gambling education and is lobbying to remove proposition bets from sports books, according to Henderson, players could use a reminder of the legal consequences of the behavior outlined in the indictment.

“It really is smaller players with less to lose that can be swayed by sophisticated organized crime or less sophisticated hubris of thinking that they can quickly profit off of these bets,” Henderson said.

The charges against the defendants can carry a maximum sentence of five years for the bribery charges and 20 years for each wire fraud charge. The defendants face three charges on wire fraud and one for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. 

Additionally, the indictment includes notices of forfeiture, allowing the government to seek the seizure of any money, gambling winnings or property allegedly obtained through or used to facilitate the scheme. 

LiLi Jarvenpa, Peyton Hopp, Ashley Mezewich and Peter Jurich contributed to this report.