Untold Operation Flagrant Foul is the latest documentary series in Untold Volume 2 that investigates the summer of 2007, when the news broke that an NBA referee was being investigated for gambling on his own games, igniting a media storm and sending the NBA, FBI and sports fans into crisis. That referee was Tim Donaghy.
The story didn’t just start and end with him but wound its way from the small town bookies of the Philadelphia suburbs to lining the pockets of the notorious New York crime families and worldwide sports gambling underworld.
The documentary features revealing sit-down interviews with Tim Donaghy, Tommy Martino, and Jimmy ‘The Sheep’ Battista, who discuss their involvement. Along with FBI agent Phil Scala, Donaghy’s lawyer John Lauro, Donaghy’s ex-wife Kim Strupp Donaghy, and more.
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How did Tim Donaghy fix NBA Games?
Tim Donaghy is a former professional basketball referee who worked in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 13 seasons from 1994 to 2007 until he was caught in a gambling scandal. During his career in the NBA, Donaghy officiated in 772 regular season games and 20 playoff games.
His partner in crime was Jimmy Battista who worked as an underground bet broker, or mover, who was at the centre of the whole betting scheme. He was a type of broker that provides services to sports bettors, laying down wagers on their client’s behalf with bookmakers of various types around the world, legal and not. These clients were mentioned to be mob ties and the Gambino Crime family.
The other was Tommy Martino their high school friend who served as the go-between in the betting scheme during the 2006-2007 NBA season. Using burner phones, Donaghy would call Martino and inform him of his pick for the game he was officiating. Martino would then relay the pick to Battista. Battista and Donaghy were never to speak directly and always used code words. Martino was also the one who would bring Tim the money that they earned from the bet, after the matches.
How it all started was Donaghy had helped his friend Jack Concannon on some betting picks that turned out to be a game-winner. Looking at the winning rate, Jimmy strikes up a deal with Donaghy to give all the intel about the games to him and in return, he would get $2000 per game. In the documentary, Tim says he was threatened to bet on his games, while others disagree.
Untold Operation Flagrant Foul: What Happened to Tim Donaghy?
On August 15, 2007, Donaghy pleaded guilty to two federal charges including betting and wire fraud. He was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison on July 29, 2008. He served 11 months in a federal prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, and the remainder of his sentence in a halfway house, but was sent back to prison in August for violating his release terms. After serving his sentence, he was released on November 4, 2009.
Tommy Martino pleaded guilty to wire fraud and got a 1.5-year sentence, while Jimmy Battista wanted to go on a trial against NBA, but later on, he pleaded guilty to illegal gambling. Soon after Donaghy’s release, he published a book called Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA in December 2009. In 2021, he even made his debut as a professional wrestling referee for Major League Wrestling.
Untold Operation Flagrant Foul is currently streaming on Netflix.
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