LAS VEGAS – Police seized $81,020 in cash belonging to pro football player Adam ”Pacman” Jones, which they said sparked a melee and a triple shooting at a strip club over the weekend, court documents show.
Jones, a cornerback with the Tennessee Titans, was showering more than 40 strippers onstage at Minxx Gentlemen’s Club & Lounge early Monday with the cash ”intended as a visual effect,” according to a search warrant. But a scuffle broke out when the Houston promoter who hired the strippers told them to pick the money up.
The promoter, identified as Chris Mitchell, owner of ”Harlem Knights,” and a male associate took a plastic trash bag containing Jones’ money and walked out the front door, the warrant says. Police recovered the money and two Breitling watches inside a safe at Mitchell’s hotel room Monday morning.
Mitchell, according to the warrant, ”admits that he took the money in the bag belonging to Jones because he thought it was for the dancers.”
After Mitchell left the club, ”a melee broke out,” the warrant says.
”Jones became irate about the loss of his money, and the fact that girls were in a frenzy, picking up the money at their feet,” the warrant says.
Later, a woman identified as a member of Jones’ group fought with one of the strippers and security tried to break up the fight, it says. Jones told the guards to back off and reached behind his back ”as if he were retrieving a weapon there.”
Jones’ entourage was moved outside, but the woman continued to fight, according to the warrant filed Wednesday in Clark County District in Las Vegas.
The woman hit a guard in the head with a champagne bottle and ”began biting and screaming” when other guards tried to restrain her, the warrant says.
Minutes later, a valet told police that he heard shots fired near the front entrance and saw a black man with corn rows in his hair pointing a black semi-automatic handgun, it says. The man then fled.
The shots hit a female customer and two guards, one of whom remained in critical condition in a Las Vegas hospital. Aaron Cudworth, the guard hit with the champagne bottle, and the woman, were treated and released.
Police have described the suspected shooter as last seen wearing a black shirt and blue jeans. As of Thursday morning, police said he was still at large.
Jones’ lawyer, Worrick Robinson, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Jones did not know anyone involved in the shooting and was interviewed by local authorities as a witness, not as a suspect. Police have not said Jones is a person of interest in the case.
Robinson could not be immediately reached for comment Thursday.
Jones has faced criminal charges three times since the Tennessee Titans made the cornerback the sixth overall pick in the 2005 draft _ all involving incidents at nightclubs in Tennessee.
The cornerback promised he had seen the inside of a courtroom for the last time Feb. 1, when a judge dismissed an assault charge filed by a woman who claimed Jones spit on her during an October nightclub altercation.
Charges in a confrontation with a club manager during a private party in July 2005 also have been dismissed.
Jones was ordered to stay out of trouble until July 5 if he wants his criminal record cleared of public intoxication and disorderly conduct charges for an August arrest in the Nashville suburb of Murfreesboro.
Robinson has said he didn’t think the Las Vegas incident violated the judge’s order.