The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office has dropped the criminal extortion charge against Vanessa Davies, the 26-year-old woman accused of threatening New Orleans Pelicans star Zion Williamson with a lawsuit alleging rape, kidnapping and beatings unless he paid her millions of dollars. Davies had faced at least one year and as much as 15 years in prison if convicted.
The case, first detailed by NOLA.com, centered on the criminal charge of extortion by threatening to expose a secret. According to the outlet’s reporting by Matt Bruce, Davies’ criminal file included memos and demand letters her attorneys sent to Williamson’s legal team, laying out the allegations she said she would take public if a settlement wasn’t reached.
A Relationship That Began in College
Davies and Williamson met in August 2018, according to attorney Gloria Allred, while Davies was a freshman at Shaw College in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. The two began dating exclusively that December, per the same account, and Williamson later asked Davies to move to New Orleans after the Pelicans made him the first overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. Davies relocated to the city in 2020, and the couple reportedly got engaged in 2024.
Attorney Kristi Schubert, a New Orleans lawyer who has pursued child-molestation cases against Catholic priests, sent Williamson’s attorneys a memo on Davies’ behalf in July 2024 seeking a settlement of a possible lawsuit. Per the same account, Schubert claimed Williamson used his money, status and physical strength to control and psychologically manipulate Davies, that he violently raped her on several occasions, and that he strangled her multiple times. Allred separately claimed Williamson threatened to kill Davies on multiple occasions.
Williamson’s Team Calls It Extortion
Williamson’s attorneys countered that the woman began demanding millions of dollars only after the friendship had ended, and they denied the allegations outright. His legal team maintained that he and Davies had a consensual relationship that ended years before any lawsuit was filed. It was that dispute over money that led Williamson’s camp to report Davies to law enforcement, resulting in the extortion charge that Orleans Parish prosecutors have now dropped…