Fresno Reels Amid Probe of Point-Shaving Allegations

It had the feel of a perfect fit, this fast-growing farm town aching for a national winner and the legendary basketball coach seeking one last chance at redemption, one last shot at restoring his luster.

Fresno and Jerry Tarkanian. The land of Armenians and the wandering Armenian son come home after a 37-year road trip that saw “Tark the Shark” become college basketball’s most winning and most investigated coach.

“It’s Tark Time,” crowed the Fresno Bee headline in April 1995, the day he penned the deal. The whole town, sensing at last its chance for glory, went nuts.

But two seasons into his comeback, Tarkanian is once again trying to fend off allegations that could not only cost him his basketball program but also rob this city, which wants to be so much more than a raisin town, of a big piece of its pride. This time, the FBI is investigating allegations that two players at Fresno State University conspired with local gamblers to shave points in several games during this season.

It was the Armenian community that two years ago persuaded university officials--jittery over Tarkanian’s reputation for playing loose with National Collegiate Athletic Assn. rules--to bring him back home. And now it is members of that same ethnic community, a pawnshop broker and a car salesman, who are alleged to have conspired with two of Tarkanian’s players to betray the 66-year-old coach in the worst possible way.

“Point shaving is the worst thing that an athlete can ever do,” Tarkanian said. “It would destroy the program. It would destroy me personally. It would kill me. I couldn’t live with that. . . . If it’s true, I’ll quit.”

With so many hopes in this irrigated flatland pinned on Tarkanian’s last hurrah, it is no wonder that the wagons are circling the coach and the team. The same Fresno Bee that handed out free “Tark Time” T-shirts and printed full-page posters of each starting player is now being pilloried by much of the town for pursuing the point shaving story. One Bee reporter has had his life threatened.

The timing of the allegations could not be worse. So much good seems within such easy reach--an 18,000-seat on-campus basketball arena, national television exposure, and a stunning lineup of talent waiting in the wings that Tarkanian has lured from inner cities across the country to this improbable spot.

Now, the next season of great expectations may never come.

Tarkanian, his voice hoarse and fingernails chewed, is hoping that the whole thing will go away. But in recent days, FBI agents have contacted the pawnshop broker suspected of putting together the plot and interviewed owners of a local nightclub where players and gamblers are said to have consorted.

The FBI has jurisdiction in the case because point shaving is a federal crime that could result in prison terms for gamblers and players. Meanwhile, the federal grand jury has subpoenaed the pawnshop’s records after it was revealed that one of the players had visited the shop to look at jewelry. Federal authorities have declined all comment on the case.

But in a three-week investigation by The Times, a detailed picture has emerged based on dozens of interviews with Bulldog coaches, players, fans, boosters, nightclub owners and members of Fresno’s bookmaking underworld. It is a picture of friendly ties between the two basketball players at the center of the allegations, sophomore guard Chris Herren and senior guard Dominick Young, and the two businessmen now under FBI scrutiny.

As far back as late January, The Times has learned, a large illegal bookmaking ring in the San Joaquin Valley took several bets from gamblers who detailed the workings of the entire alleged scheme.

“It was no secret,” said one member of the bookmaking ring. “Once word leaked out about Fresno State games being fixed, people inside and outside our organization were using that knowledge to place bets.”

Herren, 21, is a three-point shot wizard and transfer from Boston College who grew up tough in the blue-collar town of Fall River, Mass., where his high school exploits were chronicled in the recent book “Fall River Dreams.” Averaging 18 points a game this season, Herren is considered a future National Basketball Assn. draft choice if he can keep in check a substance abuse problem that family and friends say plagued him at Boston College.

Young, 23, a native of Chicago, was thought to be high on pro scouting lists as well, but a series of disappointing performances this season dropped his stock. Earlier this month, after the Bulldogs lost in the opening round of the National Invitation Tournament, he dropped out of school.

In public statements and through their attorneys, Herren and Young deny that they took part in any scheme to shave points. They also deny any personal or business ties to the two men who are the focus of the FBI investigation: Dan Jelladian, the 23-year-old pawnshop broker, and Kirk Vartanian, the 27-year-old car salesman.

Federal authorities suspect Jelladian and Vartanian of taking part in an illegal bookmaking ring. Jelladian says he and Vartanian have been friends for years, sharing an Armenian heritage and a passion for high-stakes gambling that has taken them to an Indian casino in the foothills above Fresno and to the glittering palaces of Las Vegas.

Jelladian, a 330-pound man who shows off a thick braided gold chain around his neck and several large weapons behind his desk, said he paid off all his gambling debts a few years back. The same cannot be said for Vartanian, a fancy dresser who drives a red Lamborghini and rarely goes out without the protection of one of his two heavily muscled bodyguards. According to court records, Vartanian is being sued by the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas for $44,000 in gambling losses and interest.

In November, just before the start of the college basketball season, patrons at the Eclipse nightclub in north Fresno spotted Herren and Vartanian socializing with each other. One young woman said that on two occasions late last year she saw Herren and Vartanian sharing a table at the popular disco.

On a third occasion, she said, they were joined at different times by Tarkanian’s 35-year-old son, Danny, who is an assistant coach at Fresno State, and Dominick Young. She said everyone was seated in a special section of the disco reserved by Vartanian and watched over by his bodyguards. They were sipping drinks purchased by Vartanian, she said.

“They seemed to be all friends--Chris [Herren], Dominick [Young], Danny [Tarkanian] and Kirk Vartanian,” said the female patron, who asked to not be named. “I don’t know why they’re trying to hide it now ‘cause they never hid it before.”

She said Herren seemed in awe of Vartanian--his generosity and flashy style. In the Eclipse parking lot, she said, Vartanian let Herren sit in the passenger seat of his $80,000 sports car. “Chris was infatuated. He said, ‘Man, I’m going to own one of these one day. I’m going to the NBA. I’m going to be a millionaire,’ ” she said.

Vartanian said he met Herren, Young and Danny Tarkanian only once, at the Eclipse. The younger Tarkanian said the one time he met Vartanian, none of his players were present. “If someone is telling you that I know Kirk Vartanian, they’re lying,” he said.

University boosters point out that even if the players and coaches are being less than forthright about their ties to Jelladian and Vartanian, it hardly proves a conspiracy to fix games. But Vartanian’s access to players and coaches has extended beyond Fresno’s bar scene. For most of this past season, Vartanian was given free tickets to four of the choicest seats in Selland Arena, a special section right behind the Bulldog bench.

Vartanian said the seats were given to him by a friend high up in the basketball program, but he refused to name that person. More than one Bulldog fan recalled seeing Vartanian congratulating players after games and chatting with boosters and the younger Tarkanian.

“Kirk Vartanian bragged to me and everyone else about his friendship with Danny Tarkanian,” said a 23-year-old college student who has known Vartanian for years and asked not to be named. “At one game, I saw Kirk walk up to the bench, and he and Danny Tarkanian were talking to each other.”

No one inside the basketball program or the athletic department was willing to identify the source of Vartanian’s free tickets. Al Bohl, Fresno State’s athletic director, turned down a request by The Times to make available any records that might trace where the tickets came from.

But Jerry Tarkanian’s personal assistant, Jose Elgorriaga Jr., does acknowledge a relationship with Vartanian. He said he met him at least twice, once at a local bagel shop and another time at the Eclipse. When asked if he was the source of Vartanian’s free tickets, Elgorriaga declined to answer.

“I don’t really want to comment on any of that stuff,” Elgorriaga said. “I’ve met with Vartanian, but it’s not like I was sitting on the guy’s lap.”

Shortly after Christmas, according to those near the case, a chance meeting took place that would later prove instrumental in drawing close the players and gamblers. At a local Macy’s department store, pawnbroker Jelladian ran into Herren and complimented him on his style of play. A few days later, Jelladian said, Herren paid him a visit at his downtown pawnshop.

“I showed him a big canary diamond ring, just like this one, and we became friends,” he said. “I don’t know why he was so enamored of me, but it was nothing more than that.”

Jelladian said more visits and friendly chats followed. He acknowledged that he and Herren made an unlikely pair--the hulking pawnbroker in silk and the agile guard and team leader dressed hip-hop style. Jelladian denied that the visits had anything to do with point shaving.

“I know how point shaving works, and I’m telling you right now that I’m not involved in it. I’m no Mr. Big,” he said, and then smiled. “I may be big in size, but that’s because I eat too much shish kebab.”

He said the only thing Herren ever gave him was a ticket to Fresno State’s basketball game against Rice University on Feb. 8. But when Jelladian showed up at Selland Arena that night, he discovered that Herren had forgotten to set aside a second ticket for Jelladian’s girlfriend. “Because my girlfriend couldn’t get in, I didn’t end up using the ticket,” he said.

Herren’s attorney says the fact that the player and Jelladian have met hardly amounts to criminal conspiracy. But as early as two months ago, according to members of a Southern California bookmaking organization with a large branch in the Fresno-Madera area, bookmakers received word that Fresno State basketball players were fixing games at the behest of friendly gamblers.

The illegal bookmaking ring, according to one of its members, was told by a reliable source in late January that a Fresno pawnbroker had persuaded one key player to deliberately miss shots as a way to keep the games close and beat the Las Vegas point spread.

He was told that the one player then persuaded at least one of his teammates to join the scheme for a period of five to seven games. The pawnbroker then used the illegal ring to wager $25,000 a game, according to the member, with each bet placed against Fresno State to cover the spread. In return for shaving points, he was told, the players received jewelry and $1,000 to $2,000 payments.

The ring’s money drops and pickups were all allegedly done in Chowchilla, a small Madera County town 40 miles northwest of Fresno. The ring was large enough that it could handle the Fresno State bets without any transactions crossing state lines, the bookmaker said. No funny blips showed up on the screens of oddsmakers in Las Vegas.

“I got the word from someone very reliable [in the ring] that Fresno State’s games in the middle of the season against Colorado State, Wyoming and Hawaii were all fixed. ‘Bet the farm!’ I was told. For some reason I didn’t and I regret it because Fresno failed to cover the spread in the last minutes of each of those games,” he said.

He said leaders of the bookmaking ring started getting suspicious because gamblers who were small-change players suddenly started wagering $2,000 and $3,000 a game on Fresno State not to cover the spread. In fact, he said, some of the ring’s own agents--armed with insider knowledge on Fresno State--were placing bets through friends that ended up bleeding cash from the ring.

“It’s not like a gentlemen’s club where there’s honor,” he explained. “You’re talking about guys at the bottom of the organization who get paid 10% to collect debts and now they’re playing against their own book.”

In this rich farm belt where there’s little limelight that is not generated by Bulldog sports, plenty is at stake if the allegations prove true. Boosters fear a scandal would destroy a program on the cusp of top-25 status, derail plans to build a $30-million arena and send Tarkanian back to a life of leisure in Las Vegas--his legend more dubious than ever.

Many hold the Fresno Bee responsible, forgetting that the paper had been accused not too long ago of being at the center of a Tarkanian lovefest. Fans seem to have read malice into the Bee’s decision to break the point shaving story on the day of the Bulldogs’ first game in the Western Athletic Conference tournament, a game that the 20-12 Bulldogs went on to lose badly.

Letters to the Bee, angry calls to radio talk shows and the buzz around town mostly say the same thing: The Bee did a terrible injustice to Tarkanian, his players, the university and the city.

One Bee reporter was threatened with death if he didn’t back down, according to the paper. The basketball beat writer and the paper’s sports columnist have been accosted by angry fans, one of them in the aisle of a supermarket late at night. “It’s been fairly ugly,” said J. Keith Moyer, the paper’s executive editor.

After guiding the Bulldogs to their first divisional championship in 15 years this season, Tarkanian finds himself on familiar turf. Once again, he is denying allegations that his attraction to problem players and his lax discipline have brought success stained with scandal.

At the University of Nevada Las Vegas, he won a national championship in 1990 and two years later was forced to resign amid NCAA sanctions. The scandal was precipitated in part by a photo of three of his players in a hot tub with a convicted sports fixer.

Tarkanian says the possibility of point shaving on this year’s team never entered his mind, even though his Bulldogs blew a big lead near the end of several games and failed to cover the Las Vegas spread 19 times in 26 games.

He said he is encouraged by all the calls of support, including one from a local federal agent who told him to keep his chin up.

“He said, ‘Coach, don’t worry. We’ve got to check out a few rumors, but there’s no need to worry.’ He told me just to lay low. He said, ‘Don’t let the press rile you up. Just lay low.’ ”

Times staff writer Steve Springer contributed to this story.