Exclusive | Lone woman charged in NBA gambling scandal was ‘pain in the ass’ who ‘destroyed’ NYC apartment: landlord
She was an alleged degenerate gambler … and tenant.
The lone woman tangled in the explosive NBA gambling scandal is $8,000 in the hole with her fuming former Queens landlord — who kicked the “pain in the ass” to the curb — and boldly strutted out of Brooklyn federal court sporting a poker championship sweatshirt.
Sophia “Pookie” Wei, 40, was slapped with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges Thursday as the FBI rounded up 31 suspects — from NBA ballers to New York Mafia honchos — accused of rigging poker games that conned high-rollers out of $7 million for several years, prosecutors said.
Even after cashing in as part of the scheme’s “cheating teams,” the accused swindler still stiffed her Bayside landlord, who evicted her in September 2022 for dodging rent and ripped Wei as a “pain in the ass” who trashed the apartment — even painting a naked self-portrait on the wall.
Ashley Scharge didn’t mince words when asked about his former deadbeat tenant’s role in the alleged con.
“I hope she goes to jail,” the 66-year-old told The Post Thursday afternoon.
“I know I’m never going to get my money back, so jail is the next best thing.”
The furious landlord added that the corrupt lodger had lived in the apartment for roughly 10 years, often alone after her husband bolted just three months in.
“She was a pain in the ass — nasty, bitchy, what else? Arrogant,” he charged.
“She hung out with a lot of sleazy guys.”
Then she stopped paying rent — all while cruising around in a Mercedes SUV and decked out in flamboyant, designer outfits.
“The kind of stuff that left no room for imagination,” the ex-landlord recalled.
“She’d say, ‘I don’t have it.’ That was it. She owes me $8,000, but I have no idea where she lives,” Scharge said, adding that he wanted to hire a private investigator to track her down, but it was too costly.
“She wore a lot of expensive clothes. She drove a Mercedes SUV. I knew something was up. She couldn’t pay her rent but she drove a Mercedes.”
When Scharge finally booted the alleged con artist, he recalled being stunned by the wrecked apartment and the pile of “expensive stuff” his sloppy former tenant had left behind.
“I went up there after I kicked her out,” Scharge said. “She’d destroyed the place.”
He said Wei painted a picture of herself topless on the wall and had turned one of her closets into “one of these video rooms.”
“I thought she was making movies. She had fancy studio lights. She owned a cable box, which she wasn’t allowed to do,” the lessor said.
“She left a lot of stuff — she got out of here quick because I had an order to throw her out.”
Wei was among 31 people nabbed in a sprawling backroom poker scheme, linked to NBA players Chauncey Billups, “Scary” Terry Rozier and Damon Jones, federal prosecutors said.
The con allegedly dates back to at least 2019, with many of the high-stakes games taking place in the heart of New York City and involving Big Apple mobsters from the Lucchese, Genovese, Gambino La Cosa Nostra and Bonanno crime families, according to the federal indictment.
Prosecutors say other games were held in Manhattan, the Hamptons, Las Vegas and Miami.
Wei was previously identified in a 2019 picture at a card table alongside Billups, 49, and professional poker player Saul Becher, who was also indicted.
The alleged fraudster, clad in a gray World Series of Poker sweatshirt with her black hair pulled into a ponytail and a silver box in tow, pleaded not guilty at her arraignment in Brooklyn federal court Thursday afternoon.
She was released to home detention on $100,000 bail and has until Wednesday to find two sureties to cover the bond.
Wei declined to comment on her way out of the courtroom.
