Following his arrest for his alleged involvement in an illegal gambling business involving high-stakes poker games at a property in Los Angeles, Gilbert Arenas suggested that he would be "snitching" on his five co-defendants.
During a recent stream on his YouTube channel, Arenas made it clear that he has no plans on going back to jail anytime soon. "Good luck in court. I'm pretty sure I ain't gonna be there when it's starting to go, cause, yeah, I'm snitching," he said during the stream at around the 13:40 mark, as seen below. "There was one n***a in there, he must have been the head... They gave him a translator, the translator said, 'Yeah you're not going to [bonded] out today, probably next week.' He's like, 'Oh, it's okay, it's okay.' Hey, what about me? Where my lawyer?! ... I'm not used to this shit right here, this like Kwame Brown house, there's seven n***as in this room. One shitter, six n***as."
Later in the stream, he revisited his thoughts on snitching and stressed that he doesn't see anything wrong with it, despite the stigma associated with it.
"Hey, listen... Ain't nothing wrong with snitching, man," he said around the 36-minute mark. "It ain't nothing wrong with just telling, man. ... Especially when you got a fine-ass girl at home. If I went to Jail, Kwame would be in her DMs. ... I'm going to be honest with you. They don't even got to say 20 years. N***a, they can say 20 hours. ... I'mma just be honest, I don't know 6ix9ine doing, but I'm pretty sure he living a little bit better than the n***as that he snitched on."
He also suggested that he doesn't know the co-defendant he implied was the "head" of the alleged gambling operation. "I'm not sitting ten seconds in the jail for some n***as I don't know," he said. "But I don't know him, so there's nothing to snitch on. ... I want to snitch so bad, just cause they even got me in this situation. 'Cause obviously nobody know them n***as, so obviously they use my name to make this shit big."
On Wednesday (July 30), Arenas was arrested alongside five other defendants for allegedly operating an illegal gambling business. The 43-year-old and the five others were arrested on a federal indictment and were charged with one count each of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business and operating an illegal gambling business. Additionally, Arenas is facing one count of making false statements to federal investigators.
Arenas was released on bond the following day and expressed his excitement to be released in a video shared on Instagram. "Can't hold me, baby," he said. "They can't hold me!" Alongside the clips, he added a caption that read, "This ain't got shyt to do with me."
“Arenas rented out an Encino mansion he owned for the purpose of hosting high-stakes illegal poker games,” prosecutors said in the statement announcing the federal indictment and arrests. "At Arenas’ direction, Arthur Kats, 51, of West Hollywood, staged the mansion to host the games, found co-conspirators to host the games, and collected rent from the co-conspirators on Arenas’ behalf."
He pleaded not guilty to the charges in Los Angeles court on Wednesday.