NEW YORK (AP) — Malik Beasley’s lawyer said the indicted former NBA star “wants to move on with his life” after pleading not guilty Wednesday to charges that he altered his play in certain games in 2024 to enrich sports bettors and ease his own debts.
Beasley, the latest big name caught up in a sweeping federal gambling investigation, said little at his arraignment in Brooklyn federal court. He answered a judge's questions with “yes, your honor” but let his lawyer, Jason Goldman, enter his plea on his behalf.
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Former NBA player Malik Beasley, center, exits Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Former NBA player Malik Beasley arrives outside of Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Former NBA player Malik Beasley, center, exits Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Former NBA player Malik Beasley, center, exits Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Former NBA player Malik Beasley arrives outside of Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Afterward, the 6-foot-4 (1.92 meter) shooting guard stood quietly as Goldman spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, demurring when one asked if he had anything to say to his fans. Beasley, who played for six NBA teams in nine years, missed the most recent season because he was under investigation. Instead, he played for a Puerto Rican team co-owned by the rapper Bad Bunny.
“He looks forward to fighting. He’s fought every day,” Goldman said. “He’s presumed innocent and that has to mean something still, obviously."
Beasley, 29, and sports agent Paolo Zamorano, who also pleaded not guilty on Wednesday, were among six people charged in an indictment unsealed this week.
They are the newest defendants in a gambling sweep that has netted more than three dozen arrests, including former Miami Heat star Terry Rozier, who was accused of conspiring with friends to help them win bets, and Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups, who was accused of conspiring to fix high-stakes poker games.
Zamorano, 39, formerly represented another co-defendant, ex-NBA player Ed Davis, who had loaned money to Beasley and is accused of acting as his “gatekeeper" in the alleged scheme.
“We look forward to our day in court," Zamorano’s lawyer, Kenneth Breen, told reporters.
Beasley and Zamorano were both released on bond. They're due back in court for a status conference on Aug. 6.
Beasley is accused of fixing or trying to fix his performance in at least four games while playing for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2024 by under or overperforming bookmakers' expectations. In exchange, the indictment said, the bettors bribed Beasley and his debts to Davis were reduced or eliminated.
“Only way you can beat Vegas is sports betting,” Davis told Beasley in a Jan. 26, 2024, text message, according to the indictment. “Everything else they got the edge.”
In one example, according to the indictment, Beasley told Davis that he would try to outperform the 3.5 line that sportsbooks had set for his rebound total in Milwaukee’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers on March 10, 2024.
With a second left, and the Bucks up by seven points, Beasley challenged a Clippers shot and dashed past four players to grab his fourth rebound and securing a win for the bettors as the horn sounded.
One bettor made a $3,252 profit on a $2,838 wager, the indictment said, and another made a $2,107 profit on wagers totaling $2,400. Other bettors missed out and lost money, mistakenly placing wagers on Beasley to underperform the rebound total because of an apparent miscommunication, the indictment said.
“What’s funny is after he got it he had a big sigh of relief,” a co-conspirator said in a text message, according to the indictment.
Beasley borrowed money from Davis, a former teammate, after racking up millions of dollars in gambling losses. His widely reported financial problems include disputes with a Detroit landlord, a Milwaukee barber and a Minnesota dentist. A 2025 lawsuit from a sports marketing agency resulted in a $1 million default judgment against him.
“There’s a bigger conversation here about the industry, about individuals and institutions that are profiting billions and billions of dollars and fueling the addiction,” Goldman said.
Beasley has been aware of the investigation for about a year, Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Weintraub said.
He last played in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons on a one-year, $6 million contract in the 2024-2025 season. He averaged 16 points per game and scored 20 in his last game, a playoff loss to the New York Knicks. He is one of five players in NBA history with more than 300 three-pointers in a season.
Beasley's release was secured by his parents, actors Michael and Deena Beasley, who joined the arraignment by phone from their home in Georgia. Stone-faced for most of the hourlong proceeding, Beasley laughed at his mother's answer to Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkl's question about how often they talk to each other.
“I probably call him every day. He might not answer every day,” Deena Beasley said, prompting chuckles in the courtroom. “If I call him six times a week, he'll answer five times.”
Former NBA player Malik Beasley, center, exits Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Former NBA player Malik Beasley arrives outside of Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Former NBA player Malik Beasley, center, exits Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Former NBA player Malik Beasley, center, exits Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
Former NBA player Malik Beasley arrives outside of Brooklyn federal court, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa) CORRECTION: name of the photographer corrected to Heather Khalifa instead of Yuki Iwamura
MEDORA, N.D. (AP) — President Donald Trump visited North Dakota on Wednesday to see the newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a massive facility exploring the life of America’s 26th president, built in the rugged, lonely landscape where Roosevelt built his conservation values in the 1880s.
During a tour of the 96,000-square-foot library and in a speech afterward, Trump spoke admiringly of Roosevelt and compared himself favorably to the former president, who he described as the embodiment of the American spirit, praising his toughness as a leader and outdoorsman.
“He had a freakin’ wild life,” Trump told an audience at a Western-themed amphitheater. “He didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to be great.”
The official opening of the library on Saturday coincides with July 4th celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Trump made the trip to see the $450 million project aboard his new Air Force One, a Boeing 747 given to the United States by Qatar. The visit was a boost for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former governor of North Dakota, while also bringing the nation's birthday festivities to a region synonymous with its westward expansion.
In his speech after the tour, Trump weaved between his own administration's work while returning to lessons drawn from Roosevelt's life, recounting stories of bravery during Roosevelt's time in the West and as president.
“He was something special," Trump said. “He was a really great man. He was a man the likes of which you may never see again.”
During the visit, Trump announced that his administration was giving $750,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the library’s first year.
Roosevelt visited Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. On Valentine’s Day the next year, his mother and wife died hours apart in the same house in New York.
Devastated, Roosevelt came to Dakota where he ranched cattle and hunted big game in the West during visits mostly from 1884 to 1887.
He underwent deep personal growth from his experiences, including chasing boat thieves down a river, standing up to a bully in a bar and working alongside cowboys who ridiculed him for wearing eyeglasses.
Roosevelt, who served as president from 1901 to 1909, later said he never would have been president were it not for his experiences in North Dakota.
Near the library is Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Visitors can hike trails and drive a scenic route through the colorful, rugged Badlands where bison and wild horses roam.
Trump began his second term last year by trumpeting the construction of the Panama Canal during the Roosevelt administration.
Trump even said the U.S. might seek to take back the waterway from Panama to curb influence from China. That goal has been overshadowed by his suggestions that Washington might seize control of Greenland or that Canada could become America's 51st state.
Given a chance to talk with an artificial-intelligence version of Roosevelt at the library, Trump asked if the 26th president considered the Panama Canal his greatest achievement. A digital Roosevelt said he took pride in it while also listing achievements involving parks, medicine and his Square Deal.
In the run-up to staging a UFC fight on the White House lawn for his 80th birthday, Trump said he was aware of Roosevelt holding far lower-key boxing matches in the White House. Trump made no mention of Roosevelt having detached the retina of his left eye during one such sparring session.
The trip also underscores the president's esteem for Burgum, who has become a key face of and cheerleader for the president’s expansive renovation projects around Washington.
In 2019, Burgum championed the library to North Dakota's Republican-led legislature when he was governor, touting its tourism potential. The legislature approved a $50 million operations endowment, requiring library planners to raise $100 million in private donations, a goal met in 2020. Donations total about $354 million as of early 2026.
Donors include oil executive Harold Hamm, the Waltons of Walmart fame, Kenneth Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, a hedge fund, and Burgum himself.
Trump was the library’s first official visitor, according to the library’s executive director, Robbie Lauf.
All living presidents were invited to the grand opening of the library, which joins more than a dozen others across the country that examine the lives and legacies of U.S. presidents, from Ronald Reagan in California to Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York and Herbert Hoover in Iowa. The Obama Presidential Center recently opened in Chicago, bringing together four former presidents for the occasion.
Visitors will learn about Roosevelt's conservation ideas and his Rough Riders regiment of the Spanish-American War, but also his “horrific comments” about Native Americans and other issues “that have obviously aged poorly,” Lauf said.
Artifacts, many of them out of public view for decades, will tell Roosevelt's story. Visitors will see his Rough Riders uniform; the 1884 diary grieving his terrible loss; and the eyeglasses case, speech and shirt from the 1912 assassination attempt against him.
Organizers hope the library draws families and thousands of school children from the region, as well as some of the millions of motorists who travel to Yellowstone National Park and the Black Hills.
“It's a feature, not a bug, that we are in a county of 1,000 people and a town of 120,” Lauf said. “TR came here for that purpose.”
The Dakota Resource Council on Tuesday hosted several conservation leaders who criticized Burgum and Trump for policies they say contradict Roosevelt's conservation principles, such as cutting staff and budgets and prioritizing energy development on public lands.
Last year, Burgum signed an order prioritizing the openness and accessibility of parks to the public amid the workforce cuts. He has compared America's public lands and natural resources to “assets” that should be responsibly developed to exert “energy dominance.”
On Friday, Trump plans to visit South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore for Independence Day fireworks, as he did in 2020.
Binkley reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump arrives to speak at Burning Hills Amphitheatre during the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opening ceremony, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump speaks at the Burning Hills Amphitheater during the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opening ceremony Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Exhibits are seen as President Donald Trump tours the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump arrives on the Freedom 250 train, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D., for the grand opening of the Theodore Roosevelt President Library. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump tours the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D., with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, right, and Robbie Lauf, executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Roughrider reenactors wait for President Donald Trump's arrival at the grand opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
President Donald Trump arrives on the Freedom 250 train, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D., for the grand opening of the Theodore Roosevelt President Library. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump greets people after arriving on the Freedom 250 train, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D., for an opening ceremony at the Theodore Roosevelt President Library. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump arrives on the Freedom 250 train, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D., for the grand opening of the Theodore Roosevelt President Library. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump walks up the stairs of the newly designated Air Force One, a formerly Qatari-owned jumbo jet that has been converted into the official U.S. presidential aircraft, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Wednesday, July 1, 2026, to attend the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, N.D. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)(AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One, Wednesday, July 1, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump, from right, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum tour the East Potomac Park golf course, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump speaks before signing a presidential memo to the EPA on pollution control in vehicles, in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, June 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
