Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas was arrested on Wednesday in connection with a federal indictment alleging he hosted illegal high-stakes poker games at his California mansion.

The three-time All-Star was arrested with five other individuals.

According to a release from the United States Attorney’s Office of Central California, 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.

Arenas pleaded not guilty to the charges during his arraignment Wednesday afternoon and was released on a $50,000 bond.

His trial is scheduled for September 23rd.

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Yevgeni “Giora” Gershman, a suspected high-level member of an Israeli organized crime group, and four other associates also were indicted and arrested in connection with the alleged illegal business, which prosecutors say operated from September 2021 to July 2022.

According to the indictment, Arenas rented out his Encino house and one of his associates staged the mansion for the poker games, recruited co-conspirators to host and collected rent from the co-conspirators on Arenas’ behalf.

The indictment alleges that Gershman and the other defendants ran illegal “Pot Limit Omaha” poker games, among others, which collected a cut from each pot contested.

Prosecutors say that the group hired chefs, valets and armed security guards to staff the games — as well as young women who served drinks, provided massages and offered companionship to the poker players in exchange for tips — and that the co-conspirators took a cut of the servers’ tips from the games.

It was unclear as of Wednesday who the players in the games were. The U.S. attorney’s office declined further comment.

According to the Associated Press, Arenas also faces charges of making false statements to federal investigators.

“At this point in the case, he is presumed innocent, right?” his attorney, Jerome Friedberg, said outside the courthouse, according to reports.

“He has the same right as any other citizen to that presumption and that’s how he should be treated,” Friedberg added.

The Associated Press added:

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.

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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.

KTLA 5 provided additional coverage:

 

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