NBA rigged poker suspect's wife says the case is a flop

Federal prosecutors allege a Georgia man named John Mazzola — nickname “John South” — played on the “Cheating Team” in rigged poker games in Manhattan and Miami.

Federal prosecutors allege a Georgia man named John Mazzola — nickname “John South” — played on the “Cheating Team” in rigged poker games in Manhattan and Miami. The brazen, high-tech scheme was backed by the Mafia and raked in millions of dollars, according to an indictment unsealed this week.

At least some of this came as news to Mazzola’s wife.

“We don’t even own our own home. He drives a piece-of-crap truck. They can check every account,” Tasha Mazzola said in a phone interview Friday.

“I can tell you, he doesn’t even know half of those people on the list,” she added, referring to the 30 other defendants charged in what investigators dubbed “Operation Royal Flush.” She said her husband hasn’t played poker in New York City “in years” after he was robbed of his shoes and other belongings at gunpoint during a game.

The government’s 22-page indictment suggests there is more to the story. In prosecutors’ telling, Mazzola was part of a criminal plot to lure big-fish gamblers to ritzy tables surreptitiously outfitted with card-scanning devices, X-rays and other cheating equipment. Mazzola, 43, also allegedly participated in an armed robbery to steal a manipulated shuffling machine.