Report: Tim Donaghy Said He Would Fail Polygraph If Asked If He Fixed NBA Games
Disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy reportedly refused to take a polygraph test in 2009 on the subject of whether he fixed NBA games because "he would fail it."
According to ESPN.com's Scott Eden, publisher Shawna Vercher—who was successfully sued by Donaghy in 2010 over proceeds from his memoirs—said Donaghy refused to take the test in anticipation of the release of the book.
Donaghy spent 11 months in prison from 2008-2009 after pleading guilty to two charges related to a gambling scandal.
ESPN analyzed 40 games Donaghy officiated between Dec. 12, 2006, and March 21, 2007, which is the time frame he is alleged to have been part of an NBA gambling scheme.
Researchers found that his foul calls favored the team that was bet on more heavily 77 percent of the time in the 30 games that were deemed competitive during that stretch. In those 30 games, Donaghy's calls favored the team he bet on 23 times, went against the team he bet on three times and were neutral four times.
Per Eden, the odds of Donaghy randomly making calls that favored the teams he bet on so heavily are 6,155-1.
In response to ESPN's findings, the NBA released a statement revealing that it did not come to the same conclusion after doing extensive research in its own right:
"To be clear, the Pedowitz team and the NBA performed substantial statistical and data-based analyses to determine whether Donaghy attempted to manipulate games he officiated. All of our efforts were focused on understanding precisely what he did and how he did it so we would be best equipped to protect the integrity of our games going forward. ... These analyses did not support [ESPN's] finding that an unbiased official would not have made the calls that Donaghy did."
The NBA noted that its research covered "the entirety of the period during which Donaghy had admitted to gambling on games" and that 194 of the games it analyzed were officiated by Donaghy.
Donaghy served as an NBA official from 1994 until his resignation in 2007 just before the announcement of an FBI investigation into potential game-fixing.
