Police: Man arrested after alleged extortion plot targeted Houston Texans

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A man has been charged with theft in connection with an extortion plot involving the Houston Texans. Chaz Davis attempted to get several thousand dollars from the Texans as well as sell his story to several Houston media outlets, including ABC-13 Eyewitness News.

This past Monday, Chaz Davis, a man with a checkered criminal history, called the Eyewitness News assignment desk and told Jason Jobes that he had a story about a Houston Texans player.

"That was his whole mission. He wanted to sell the photos," said Jobes, who is the assignments manager for Eyewitness News. "That's not something we would do, but I agreed to look at the photos."

A few hours later, Jobes met Davis in the ABC-13 parking lot. The meeting was captured on surveillance video. During the brief meeting, Davis showed Jobes some text messages and several photos which appeared to show a Texans player smoking something.

"There's a text conversation with some people, and some photos of him," said Jobes. "He's smoking, i don't know what his smoking, it didn't look like he was doing anything wrong."

Sometime after meeting with Eyewitness News, court records show Davis contacted the Houston Texans security staff, telling its head of security that he had text messages and photos of a Texans player smoking pot.

Davis also allegedly told the Texans he tried to sell the story to local television stations for $1,500.

On Tuesday, the team's head of security met up with Davis at the Pappadeaux restaurant on the South Loop, near NRG stadium.

Court records showed the Texans met with Davis inside the restaurant, and that there was some kind of contract signed. Records also show that after signing the contract, Davis was given the $3,000 he asked for, and he handed the Texans a cell phone that allegedly contained the photos. After the exchange Davis and his girlfriend, who was with him, were promptly arrested outside the restaurant.

Our legal analyst says this is unfortunately all too common.

"Extortion plots happen to profession athletes and executives," said Eyewitness News legal analyst Joel Androphy. "People are always looking to make a buck by putting an executive or professional athlete in a negative light."

Androphy says the Texans did the right thing by setting up a sting with police. The team would not comment on the extortion plot. It did tell us that the inactive player was released from the Texans roster today. However, the team would not say if the player's release and this criminal case was related.

Davis is currently in jail facing theft charges. His girlfriend was arrested for unrelated drug charges.

The Texans player was released on Wednesday, though it's not clear if it was related to this story.