SAN ANTONIO — Less than a week after Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was arrested as part of an FBI gambling probe, developments continue to emerge from the ongoing case.

On Wednesday, the South Florida Sun Sentinel confirmed through multiple NBA sources that Rozier’s $26.6 million salary for the coming season, the final season on his contract, will be placed in escrow by the NBA.

The first of 24 installments of Rozier’s salary is due this week, at $1.1 million.

An NBA source told the Sun Sentinel that the move with Rozier’s salary does not include, at the moment, commensurate salary-cap or luxury-tax relief for the Heat.

Without such relief, the Heat remain without the necessary space below the punitive NBA luxury tax to sign a replacement player.

Word of the NBA’s move with Rozier’s salary came in the wake of comments by Rozier’s attorney that the arrest was a sham.

In addition, Rozier has been linked to an IRS lien on his Broward property that his attorney said now has been resolved.

On Tuesday, Jim Trusty, the attorney for Rozier, lashed out at federal prosecutors about his client’s arrest.

In an interview on Fox News Channel’s The Will Cain Show, Trusty prefaced his responses by saying, “Well, look, I don’t want to try every little nugget in front of the TV set.”

But Rozier’s attorney then drew a line when asked about Rozier pulling himself from a Charlotte Hornets game in 2023, with wagers on “under” totals on Rozier from that game leading to Rozier’s friend De’Niro Laster purportedly taking proceeds from the disclosure to Rozier’s home to be counted.

“Let me just tell you,” Trusty said, “Terry Rozier had a $100 million contract and a big shoe endorsement. This indictment actually suggests that he faked the injury, which is absurd. People knew about it. Medical people knew about it. Staff knew about it. Friends knew about it. This was a guy who was banged up after a long 82-game season. The Hornets are out of the playoffs. So he and others were telling the Hornets coaching staff, time to sit him, man. It’s a waste.

“And so when he sat that game and the next five or six games to end the season, he actually lost money. I mean, it’s so contradictory to this kind of sexy gambling story. He lost money on his shoe contract because he didn’t play enough games because, like a lot of NBA starters, by game 70, he’s got all sorts of issues.

“In this case, it was his foot. It was a chronic injury. It was just going to get worse if he played for no reason. So he took himself out. And I’m not here to defend De’Niro or anybody else in the indictment. There’s a bunch of people Terry doesn’t even know if he could pick him out of a lineup.”

Adding to questions about Rozier’s financial state is an ESPN report that the IRS filed the $8,218,211 federal income tax lien in Broward County where Rozier has a residence, against Rozier in November 2023. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that issue has been resolved.

Rozier has been placed on administrative leave by the NBA, away from the Heat, who open a four-game western swing Thursday night against the San Antonio Spurs.

Rozier was arrested last week in Orlando the morning after the Heat lost their season opener to the Magic at Kia Center.

“I will just tell you, confiding in a friend, a childhood friend, and saying, man I’m banged up, it’s the end of the season, we’re out of the playoffs, I think I’m going to sit early in this game, that’s not a crime,” Trusty said. “That’s nothing. That’s not even prohibited by any sort of statute. That’s simply confiding in a friend. And maybe the league should create rules that say you can only tell a manager or trainer or your priest or your mom. But he told a friend. And whatever that friend did is not on Terry. That’s the difference between being indicted for the trophy of a professional basketball player and having solid evidence.

“The allegations in the indictment itself are thin.”

According to the federal indictment, “After the defendant DENIRO LASTER collected his cut of the fraudulent wagering scheme proceeds from the defendant MARVES FAIRLEY, LASTER drove from Philadelphia to the defendant TERRY ROZIER’s home in Charlotte, North Carolina. LASTER arrived in Charlotte on or about March 30, 2023 and met ROZIER at his home that day. During the early morning hours of April 1, 2023, LASTER and ROZIER counted the money that LASTER had obtained from FAIRLEY in Philadelphia.”

Rozier was traded by the Hornets to the Heat in January 2024, in exchange for Heat guard Kyle Lowry and a future Heat first-round pick that could come due as soon as June 2027.

The NBA has declined to respond to questions forwarded multiple times by the Sun Sentinel in regard to potential salary-cap, luxury-tax or draft-pick relief for the Heat, in light of Rozier having been under NBA investigation prior to the trade.

The case involving Rozier was rolled into a joint FBI-Justice Department media session along with charges involving a rigged series of poker games that featured NBA talent being present.

“This is an innocent guy who’s getting completely screwed, to use some legal vernacular, in terms of his career,” Trusty said. “It’s an 11-year vet. He’s played 1,000 games. They’re latching onto a game where the NBA literally cleared him two years ago and trying to suggest that somehow they know better and that they know he was a conspirator, as opposed to just somebody who had a hurt foot.”

As for the IRS lien against Rozier, ESPN reported that the address on the tax lien corresponded to a company in California incorporated in 2024 called GMB Chronicles, which also lists Rozier as an officer and holds the trademark rights to his nickname, “Scary Terry.”

Broward records also showed a construction lien filed against Rozier in August 2022 for about $271,000, of which $250,000 was paid by July 2023. The lien was for work being done on his $5.3 million property in west Broward.

Several Miami Heat players and other NBA players have lived in Southwest Ranches over the years, including Udonis Haslem, James Jones and Amar’e Stoudemire, with Haslem still maintaining his primary residence there.

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