EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsPro Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups, former NBA guard Damon Jones and nearly three dozen co-defendants will stand trial beginning Nov. 2, a federal judge said Wednesday.All of the defendants appeared for a status hearing inside the United States Courthouse in Brooklyn, where Judge Ramon Reyes set the trial date.At the moment, there are too many defendants to try at once so federal prosecutors and defense attorneys will discuss how to divvy up the case for trial.Federal prosecutors said they expect to extend plea offers to 12 defendants in the coming days. At least nine other defendants are having "productive conversations" about pleading guilty, prosecutors said.The latest filing did not mention particular defendants or say whether Billups is among those considering a plea deal.Billups and Jones are accused of luring unsuspecting players to poker games rigged by the mob. They and the rest of the defendants, who include purported organized crime figures and suppliers of equipment to rig the games, have pleaded not guilty.Since the previous status hearing on Nov. 24, defendants have been able to review all the evidence in the case, which has been placed under a protective order by the court.In their brief submitted Tuesday, the prosecutors said evidence includes body-worn camera footage; records concerning the defendants' arrests; electronic evidence seized from seven electronic devices and Apple iCloud accounts; over 100,000 pages of financial records and telephone records; over 800 pages of surveillance photographs; and pole camera footage from 147 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, one of the sites of the alleged rigged poker games.The government has separately produced approximately 7 terabytes of electronic data from electronic devices and iCloud accounts of individual defendants, which were seized upon their arrests in October.Billups has been on unpaid administrative leave from his job as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers since his arrest. He pleaded not guilty to the money laundering and wire fraud charges against him in November.He has been living in the Denver area, sources close to him told ESPN, since being released on $5 million bail.ESPN's Ramona Shelburne contributed to this report.
