A woman accused of trying to extort Pelicans star Zion Williamson for millions of dollars no longer faces criminal charges in New Orleans.
Vanessa Davies, 26, had been charged with trying to force the Pels’ second-leading scorer to pay her by threatening to file a lawsuit alleging he raped, kidnapped and beat her over their five-year relationship.
A woman identified in court filings only as “Jane Doe” filed a civil suit against Williamson last year in Los Angeles that largely mirrored the allegations Davies’ attorneys threatened to lodge against the basketball star. It’s not clear if she was the plaintiff in that lawsuit.
Prosecutors from the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office dropped Davies’ count of extortion by threatening to expose a secret on Thursday, court records show.
Had Davies been convicted of the charge, she faced at least a year behind bars and could’ve been hit with up to 15 years in prison.
Exhibits in the criminal case included memos and demand letters from Davies’ attorneys, ordering Williamson to preserve phone records and other information that could be used as evidence in a civil case.
One letter was sent from the Beverly Hills law firm of Gloria Allred, a high-profile anti-discrimination attorney who, in recent years, has handled dozens of accusers’ sexual abuse claims against celebs like Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby, R. Kelly and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
In her June 2023 letter, Allred said Davies and Williamson met August 2018 in Durham, North Carolina during Williamson’s lone season playing at Duke University. Davies at the time was a freshman at Shaw College, a historically Black college in downtown Raleigh.
The two began dating exclusively in December 2018, and Williamson asked Davies to move to New Orleans after the Pelicans drafted him as the first overall pick in the 2019 NBA draft, Allred’s letter stated. Davies did move here in 2020 and the couple got engaged in 2024.
But Allred claimed Williamson threatened to kill Davies on multiple occasions during their relationship.
Kristi Schubert, a New Orleans attorney that’s pursued scores of child molestation cases against Catholic priests across the state, also sent Williamson’s attorneys a memo on Davies’ behalf in July 2024.
Schubert reached out to Williamson’s then-lawyers to settle a possible lawsuit that purported he used his money, status and “extreme physical strength” to control and psychologically manipulate Davies. She also claimed Williamson violently raped the woman on several occasions and strangled her to “within an inch of her life multiple times.
In a statement after the May 2025 lawsuit against Williamson was filed, his legal team denied the allegations in a statement saying he “never dated” the plaintiff in that case. Williamson and the anonymous woman had a consensual relationship that ended years prior to the suit.
“Only after the friendship ended did she begin demanding millions of dollars,” Williamson’s attorneys at the time stated.
Stay tuned for more on this developing story.