Former NBA All-Star Busted On "Massive Online Fraud" Charges

Police say Chris Gatling, whose 11-year NBA career saw him play for eight different teams, was the mastermind of a “massive online fraud” scheme that allegedly featured the 1997 All-Star stealing credit card numbers from people all over the country.

Gatling is charged with fraud, aggravated identity theft, and forgery in a case cops say involved a network of online businesses that charged people’s cards for services they didn’t buy. One woman says Gatling met her on a dating website and convinced her to run her fitness studio’s credit card charges through his company; she ended up losing $90,000 and had to shut down her business.

This isn’t Gatling’s first brush with the law; he’s currently on probation for theft and forgery in a case that saw him squatting in a vacant house then trying to rent it out.

Photo credit: Getty Images/Tom Hauck

To contact the author of this post, write to tim@deadspin.com ( PGP key) or find him on Twitter @bubbaprog.