Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas, 5 others charged with running illegal poker games at his LA mansion

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas was arrested Wednesday along with five other people, including a suspected member of an Israeli organized crime group, on suspicion of hosting illegal high-stakes poker games at a Los Angeles mansion owned by Arenas, federal prosecutors said.

All six defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business and one count of operating an illegal gambling business, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office. They were all scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon.

Arenas, 43, is also charged with making false statements to federal investigators, the statement said. He is named in the indictment as ”Agent Zero," a nickname from his playing days with the Washington Wizards.

Arenas appeared in court Wednesday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles and was released on a $50,000 bond after pleading not guilty to the charges. His trial is scheduled for Sept. 23.

His attorney Jerome Friedberg said outside the courthouse that he hadn't had much time to speak with his client and couldn't comment on the case.

“At this point in the case, he is presumed innocent, right?” Friedberg said. “He has the same right as any other citizen to that presumption and that's how he should be treated.”

The other five defendants are residents of Los Angeles ranging in age from 27 to 52. Among them is a 49-year-old man described by prosecutors as “a suspected organized crime figure from Israel.”

The indictment says that from September 2021 to July 2022, the defendants staged the home in the Encino neighborhood to host “Pot Limit Omaha” poker games and other illegal gambling activity. The poker players paid a “rake,” a fee charged as a percentage or fixed amount from each hand gambled, court documents claim.

One of the defendants hired young women who, in exchange for tips, served drinks and provided massages and “offered companionship” to the poker players, according to prosecutors.

“The women were charged a ‘tax’ – a percentage of their earnings from working the games. Chefs, valets, and armed security guards also were hired to staff these illegal poker games,” the statement said.

The Israeli man faces separate charges including marriage fraud and lying on immigration documents. He is suspected of conspiring with a 35-year-old Los Angeles woman to enter into a sham marriage for the purposes of obtaining permanent legal status in the U.S.

If convicted, the defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for each count, prosecutors said.

Arenas averaged 20.7 points during an 11-year career with four teams, most notably a seven-plus season stint in Washington from 2004-11.

Charismatic and mercurial, Arenas — who counted “Agent Zero” (representing his number) and “Hibachi” for the way he could heat up during a game among his many nicknames — was a three-time All-Star, a gifted scorer and one of the key cogs in a handful of Wizards teams that enjoyed modest success in the mid-to-late 2000s.

Yet Arenas’ run in Washington ended in disgrace. Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton were suspended for the balance of the NBA season in January 2010 following a locker-room incident in which both players pulled guns on each other.

Arenas returned to play briefly for Washington the following season before being traded to Orlando. He then bounced to Memphis in 2011, coming off the bench for 17 games before stepping away to play in the Chinese Basketball Association in 2012-13. He never returned to the NBA.

His son, Alijah Arenas, was a Los Angeles high school basketball star who is a highly touted freshman player for the University of Southern California. His college career is on hold pending knee surgery and rehab is expected to take months, the school said last week.

Gilbert Arenas' girlfriend, Melany Monaco leaves the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building after attending a court session with former NBA star Gilbert Arenas at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Attorney Jerome Friedberg, left, talks to the media as he walks out of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Attorney Jerome Friedberg, left, walks out of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building after obtaining bail for his client, former NBA star Gilbert Arenas in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Gilbert Arenas' girlfriend, Melany Monaco leaves the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building after attending a court session for former NBA star Gilbert Arenas in Encino, Calif., on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

FILE - Former Washington Wizards player Gilbert Arenas takes part in a ceremony during the half-time of an NBA basketball game between the Wizards and the Miami Heat, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass, File)

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.

The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “ fundamental disagreement ” remains with Trump over the island.

The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and "people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.

Here's a look at what Greenlanders have been saying:

Trump has dismissed Denmark’s defenses in Greenland, suggesting it’s “two dog sleds.”

By saying that, Trump is “undermining us as a people,” Mari Laursen told AP.

Laursen said she used to work on a fishing trawler but is now studying law. She approached AP to say she thought previous examples of cooperation between Greenlanders and Americans are “often overlooked when Trump talks about dog sleds.”

She said during World War II, Greenlandic hunters on their dog sleds worked in conjunction with the U.S. military to detect Nazi German forces on the island.

“The Arctic climate and environment is so different from maybe what they (Americans) are used to with the warships and helicopters and tanks. A dog sled is more efficient. It can go where no warship and helicopter can go,” Laursen said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed Russian and Chinese ships are swarming the seas around Greenland. Plenty of Greenlanders who spoke to AP dismissed that claim.

“I think he (Trump) should mind his own business,” said Lars Vintner, a heating engineer.

“What's he going to do with Greenland? He speaks of Russians and Chinese and everything in Greenlandic waters or in our country. We are only 57,000 people. The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market. And every summer we go sailing and we go hunting and I never saw Russian or Chinese ships here in Greenland,” he said.

Down at Nuuk's small harbor, Gerth Josefsen spoke to AP as he attached small fish as bait to his lines. He said, “I don't see them (the ships)” and said he had only seen “a Russian fishing boat ten years ago.”

Maya Martinsen, 21, a shop worker, told AP she doesn't believe Trump wants Greenland to enhance America's security.

“I know it’s not national security. I think it’s for the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched,” she said, suggesting the Americans are treating her home like a “business trade.”

She said she thought it was good that American, Greenlandic and Danish officials met in the White House Wednesday and said she believes that “the Danish and Greenlandic people are mostly on the same side,” despite some Greenlanders wanting independence.

“It is nerve-wrecking, that the Americans aren’t changing their mind,” she said, adding that she welcomed the news that Denmark and its allies would be sending troops to Greenland because “it’s important that the people we work closest with, that they send support.”

Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told AP that she hopes the U.S. got the message from Danish and Greenlandic officials to “back off.”

She said she didn't want to join the United States because in Greenland “there are laws and stuff, and health insurance .. .we can go to the doctors and nurses ... we don’t have to pay anything,” she said adding "I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”

In Greenland's parliament, Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament told AP that he has done multiple media interviews every day for the last two weeks.

When asked by AP what he would say to Trump and Vice President JD Vance if he had the chance, Berthelsen said:

“I would tell them, of course, that — as we’ve seen — a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats are not in favor of having such an aggressive rhetoric and talk about military intervention, invasion. So we would tell them to move beyond that and continue this diplomatic dialogue and making sure that the Greenlandic people are the ones who are at the very center of this conversation.”

“It is our country,” he said. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people.”

Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka contributed to this report.

FILE - A woman pushes a stroller with her children in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

Military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament poses for photo at his office in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fisherman Gerth Josefsen prepares fishing lines at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A woman walks on a street past a Greenlandic national flag in Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)