Document: Pacman paid ‘extortion’ cash

LAS VEGAS – Adam “Pacman” Jones paid “extortion” money to a 29-year-old man arrested for a Las Vegas strip club shooting that left a club employee paralyzed, police said.

Arvin Kenti Edwards, of Renton, Wash., allegedly used go-betweens to reach Jones, who paid $15,000 in two installments after the shooting, according to a police report obtained Monday.

“He paid $15,000 to his friends, who advised him that if he didn’t pay the money then this guy would come after him,” said Robert Langford, Jones’ lawyer in Las Vegas.

Jones, 24, went to Seattle on Friday and picked Edwards from a police lineup, Langford said. He said Jones identified Edwards as the man who opened fire with a handgun a little before 5 a.m. Feb. 19, 2007, outside the strip club during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend.

Police alleged in the documents that one of the go-betweens told Jones that if he refused to pay, the accused shooter would “go after Jones, his mother and daughter.”

Throughout the warrant declaration police repeatedly refer to extortion and “extortion monies,” and say Jones told investigators he withdrew $10,000 from a bank account in Atlanta to pay his friend “for paying the extortion money in his behalf.”

Jones pleaded no contest Dec. 6 in Las Vegas to conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct in a plea deal that reduced two felony charges of coercion, which each carried a possible sentence of one to six years in prison.

In return, he agreed to tell police what he knew about the gunman. Jones never acknowledged any role in the shooting.