National Basketball Association

Former NBA ref Tim Donaghy joined white power gang in prison

Published Jun. 15, 2015 3:54 a.m. ET

foxsports

By Larry Brown

Tim Donaghy says he joined a white power gang while serving his prison sentence because he wanted protection after ratting out some fellow inmates for gambling.

Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison in 2008 for betting on games while working as an NBA referee. He served 11 months and then was released to a halfway house, but he violated the terms of his release and was sent back to finish his sentence.

According to a new profile by Pat Jordan in New York Magazine, Donaghy joined a white power gang while in prison.

From Jordan’s article, which says Donaghy didn’t like his experience there.

“Too many criminals,” he says. Men who had killed informants, meth dealers, wives. He called his mother: “Mom! Oh my God! I don’t belong here! I could get killed.” But that didn’t stop him from ratting out his fellow inmates for gambling. Then he joined a white-power gang to avoid retribution (he didn’t want to get the tattoo and says they let him shave his head instead).

We wonder at what point Donaghy joined the gang, because we wrote back in 2009 that he was beat up in prison. Maybe it was in response to an assault.

Donaghy also talks in the article about how the league favors certain players and has the referees call games accordingly. Additionally, he tells Jordan the NBA threatened a publishing company so that it wouldn’t publish his book. A lot of the information Donaghy told Jordan such as how referees disliked Allen Iverson and gave Kobe Bryant superstar treatment is stuff that he also said in his book.

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