I'm not sure how many of you have heard about this, but if it were common knowledge you'd think this guy would be out of the league. Yeah, it's from a while ago, but I just heard about it today on the radio (I forget which show), and I'm infuriated that he's still an NBA ref and Stern was able to brush this under the rug. Here's a FoxNews report detailing Foster's relationship with Tim Donaghy.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,381842,00.htmlThe records show Donaghy placed 134 calls to referee Scott Foster — more than the 126 calls Donaghy made to his bookie — between October 2006 and April 2007, the period during which he has confessed to either betting on games or passing on game information to gamblers. The majority of the phone calls lasted no more than two minutes and occurred prior to and after games Donaghy officiated and on which he admits wagering.
The new information may call into question insistent claims by NBA Commissioner David Stern that Donaghy was a “rogue, isolated criminal” acting on his own, without the cooperation of any other referees or league officials.
Calls between Foster, 41, and Donaghy, also 41, took place immediately before and after 54 of the 57 games Donaghy officiated from the beginning of the 2006-2007 season until mid-March, when his role in the gambling operation apparently ended. Records also show a vast majority of the calls came in the hours before or after games officiated by Donaghy or Foster.
Donaghy’s phone records for one of those days, Dec. 30, obtained by Fox News, reveal the following:
— 10:34 a.m. – Donaghy calls Foster.
— 10:35 a.m. – Donaghy calls another referee.
— 10:36 a.m. – Donaghy calls Martino, the “middleman” between him and his bookie.
— 10:39 a.m. – Donaghy calls Foster.
— 5:15 p.m. – Donaghy calls Martino.
— 5:23 p.m. – Donaghy calls Martino.
— 7 p.m. – Donaghy referees game between the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. The Magic win in a rout, 97-68.
— 8 p.m. – Foster referees a game between the Toronto Raptors and the Memphis Grizzlies in Memphis. The Grizzlies win 110-104. Foster and Donaghy speak 12 minutes after the game.
— 11:27 p.m. – Foster and Donaghy speak for at least the fourth time of the day.
— 11:38 p.m. – Foster and Donaghy speak for at least the fifth time of the day.
The following day, Donaghy spoke with Foster at 1:37 p.m., for two minutes. One minute later, at 1:40 p.m., Donaghy spoke to Martino, also for two minutes.
On a number of other days:
— Donaghy placed three calls to Foster before Donaghy refereed the Jan. 19, 2007, game between the New Orleans Hornets and the San Antonio Spurs. The next day, he called Foster three more times.
— On Jan. 27, Donaghy had the day off, but he called Foster five times, each time for no more than two minutes, before Foster refereed a game that night between the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks.
— On Jan. 18, the next day, Donaghy and Foster spoke three more times.
— On Feb. 2, before Donaghy refereed a game in Boston between the Celtics and Los Angeles Clippers, he made three more calls to Foster. He called Foster again after the game, then immediately called Martino.
Only three game days do not show calls to Foster:
— Nov. 29, when the L.A. Clippers hosted Memphis;
— Jan. 22, when Donaghy was in Toronto and, according to court records, used calling cards to place all of his calls;
— Jan. 24, when Cleveland hosted Philadelphia and Donaghy used the same calling card. On Jan. 23, however, Donaghy’s cell phone records show two calls to Foster.
Donaghy might logically communicate with other referees he was officiating with, and there are many such calls in Donaghy’s records. But Donaghy and Foster did not referee a single game together during the 2006-2007 season.
Donaghy also had three other cell phone numbers registered in his name, all of which he used. But he called Foster using the phone the feds say he designated for mostly gambling-related use.
The short calls with Foster stopped abruptly in mid March 2007, when Donaghy is believed to have stopped his gambling.
Okay so Donaghy called Foster multiple times each day, all extremely short conversations, during the period in which he bet on games, on the cell phone out of the several he owned that was reserved for gambling use. Then, after he stops betting on games, the phone calls stop.
And Foster is still officiating games to this day. Stern apparently said they were "just close friends."
Wow.
Topic: More on officiating - Scott Foster (Read 1653 times)