Alleged NBA poker scammer ‘Pookie’ painted portraits for celebrities and singers

The only woman charged in the sprawling New York City mafia and NBA-linked poker scam spent years cavorting with celebrities and musicians before her stunning arrest, high-flying photos from her Instagram show.

Sophia Wei — a 40-year-old known as “Pookie” — painted portraits for celebrities like comedian Kevin Hart, and enjoyed hanging out with hip hop stars and athletes, according to her social media posts.

She notably painted Hart a massive portrait of his late mother around 2020, writing on Instagram how it was her first commission after she picked up the brush during the pandemic lockdowns.

“Here it all started, prior to this piece, I was painting as a hobby, to pass time during quarantine!! My very first commission!!” she wrote on her now-private Instagram, alongside a photo of Hart holding her painting.

And the comedian was just one of many.

Musicians like Drake, Ne-Yo, Jadakiss, Mary J. Blige and members of the Fugees appeared on her Instagram, while Shaquille O’Neal’s sons also appear to have bought art from Pookie.

None of those celebs, however, were implicated in any way in the massive indictment handed down by the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Pookie was one one of 31 people charged in the scheme, which allegedly saw mobsters from New York’s Five Families use ex-NBA stars to lure high rollers into backroom poker games — and then cheat them out of millions with an elaborate system of ruses.

The targets were often the only people at the poker game who weren’t in on the scam, which allegedly used electric shufflers rigged with card readers that would tell an off-site handler who at the table had the best hand.

Handlers would then communicate to the team of cheaters in the room who would covertly advise the players how to behave in the game to draw as much money out of their target as they could.

Other tactics included X-ray poker tables that could read cards through the felt, computerized card analyzers hidden in phones — and even specialized contact lenses that could read secret card markings visible only to the wearer.

The games were mostly run out of New York City, but also reached the Hamptons, Miami and Las Vegas.

Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups was linked to the scheme as one of the NBA stars allegedly used to lure victims in — and Pookie was even photographed alongside him at a poker game in 2019, around the time the scheme first started.

Pookie was arrested Thursday and then let loose on home detention after posting $100,000 bail, and pleaded not guilty to wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges — all while wearing a “World Series of Poker” sweatshirt in court.

Pookie notably trashed her longtime Queens apartment, with her ex-landlord telling The Post that she skipped out on rent and left a giant nude portrait of herself painted on the wall.

She previously declined to comment when approached by The Post.