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Posted at 5:28 a.m., Thursday, July 26, 2007

NBA: Bookies associated with accused ref identified

By Mike Jaccarino, John Marzulli and Bill Hutchinson
New York Daily News

NEW YORK — Two Catholic high school friends of disgraced referee Tim Donaghy have been identified as the bookies in a gambling scandal rocking the NBA, the New York Daily News has learned.

But the two bet-takers apparently exaggerated their Mafia connections. "They're nobodies," a law enforcement source said.

The mob wanna-bes attended Cardinal O'Hara High School in suburban Philadelphia with Donaghy, who was a varsity standout on the school's basketball and baseball teams.

Donaghy, 40, has become the focus of the federal investigation into bets he allegedly made on NBA games, including some he officiated. The veteran referee, who earned $260,000 a year for whistling fouls on the hardwood, allegedly gave the bookies advance word on officiating crews of games they planned to take action on, the source said.

Donaghy is expected to surrender to the FBI by next week to plead guilty to gambling charges, federal sources have told The News. An educator at Cardinal O'Hara, who requested anonymity, confirmed the feds have identified two alums of the school as the bookies. He said both men graduated a couple of years ahead of Donaghy.

One of the men named by the school source refused to comment when contacted yesterday by The News.

"I'm not talking about anything," the man said. "Don't come on my property at all."

Donaghy has been holed up inside his two-story home in Bradenton, Fla., refusing to make any statements and claiming to be "the butler" when reporters knock on his door.

Known as a hothead, he apparently turned his lawn sprinklers on a freelance photographer for The New York Times yesterday, drenching the shutterbug for getting too close to the hedges outside his house.