OK. I know I'm rather on the sheltered side. But why would a newspaper columnist use a
poom-poom pants reference?
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Posted on Mon, Aug. 05, 2002
Ronnie Polaneczky | CHARLES JONES' STORY
IVERSON ACCUSER DEFENDS HIS 'TRUTH' AND HIMSELF
By Ronnie Polaneczky
polaner@phillynews.com
WHERE DO you go when your closest friends have dissed you, in a court of law, as a schemer and extortionist?
Home to Mom and Dad.
"Family are the only people I trust right now," said Charles Jones. "I got family here. It's the only place I feel safe."
Jones, of course, is the poom-poom pants-wearing 21-year-old who alleged that Allen Iverson threatened him and a friend with a gun.
It's been a week since a judge threw out all felony charges against the Sixers star, who now faces charges only of making terroristic threats.
Still, Jones had a lot to say during a lengthy phone interview from Hampton, Va., where he's hanging out with his Pentecostal preacher mother and deacon father - who prayed with him in the witness waiting room moments before he testified.
Also supporting Jones are his four siblings, 12 nieces and nephews and a gaggle of extended family and friends.
All are appalled, he said, at the damning testimony by Hakim Carey and Shaun Bowman, Iverson's cousin, during Iverson's preliminary hearing.
Carey testified that he "went along" with Jones in saying that he saw a gun tucked in Iverson's waistband.
Bowman said Jones wanted $100,000 in exchange for not pressing charges against A.I.
Dirty, stinkin' lies, said Jones.
"I'm more upset by what Shaun and Hakim said" than by what happened with Iverson, Jones told me. "Allen Iverson is nothing to me. Shaun and Hakim were my friends.
"They disgust me. They don't own their minds. No one owns me, so I can speak the truth."
Many people doubt Jones' truth.
I'm not one of them. Neither are the police and detectives who worked on this case, nor prosecutor Charles Ehrlich, whose efforts to keep the courtroom field level were smacked down by Judge James DeLeon.
Those who disagree with us will point to Jones' flighty past, his gay lifestyle, his 10-hour delay before calling 911. They'll say this harms his credibility.
But Jones is the only witness whose courtroom testimony didn't waver from what he originally told police.
Carey and Bowman were all over the place. Yet their flip-flopping, somehow, carried the day.
Go figure.
Am I saying Charles Jones is a kid I'd have over for coffee? Not necessarily. He could use a dose of maturity. And a crash course in "How to Pick Better Friends." But I think he was denied justice. And I think he deserves a chance to speak his mind.
So here, in his words, is what Jones had to say about Allen Iverson, friendship, Philly cops and cell phones. For the record, I tried to reach Bowman or Carey for comment but couldn't. Iverson said last week that he wouldn't comment any further on the case until the legal proceedings are concluded.
Jones says he has a simple reason for waiting so long to call 911 - and for calling friends, relatives and a lawyer before finally calling the cops: He was scared. And he was looking for someone to drive him home to Virginia.
"I didn't know if people were watching my house," Jones said. "I wanted to get away. Everyone finds that so hard to believe, but it is not. It was like a 'live today, fight tomorrow' situation."
Iverson "said he was going to come back if he couldn't find his wife, and no one would make it out of there," Jones said. "I believed him. He came the first time, why wouldn't he come the second time?"
As to the lawyer he called, he said he didn't even speak to him - he left a message with someone else in the office. It was a 20-minute message, Jones said, because "I had a lot to tell them."
Jones says he's mystified that Hakim Carey and Shaun Bowman's stories have mutated from their original statements to police.
"I never put words in Hakim's mouth. The gun was shown to me in the bedroom. It was shown to Hakim in the living room. We conversed about it.
"I said, 'He had a gun,' and he said, 'I seen it.' And I said, 'For real?' He said, 'Yeah.'
"I feel very betrayed by him," Jones said. "At the same time, God is showing what people I need to have around me and what people I don't."
And about Shaun Bowman and his contention in court that Jones wanted $100,000 to drop the charges?
"That is a lie," Jones said. "They try to make it seem like it's all about money. I don't need their money."
Jones said he worked for temp agency Labor Ready and gave Bowman money toward rent and other expenses. "I've been taking care of myself for 21 years. All the money I need I can make on my own. It's even kind of insulting."
Soon after the incident - when Jones found himself locked out of the West Philadelphia apartment he had shared with Bowman - he spoke to his former roommate.
"Shaun said A.I. was wrong and whatever happened to his cousin should happen," Jones said. "That is what he told me out of his mouth."
But, Jones said, "He asked me to speak to Iverson's lawyer. He didn't want me to press charges. He was telling me they would use my past against me and I wouldn't win."
That past, Jones said, includes a five-month imprisonment on forgery charges. He says he was with a friend who forged a check and then couldn't make bail to get out.
He eventually got probation and, while behind bars, his GED.
If he ever sees Bowman again, Jones said, "I don't know what I would say. He has never been the type of person who would let someone dictate his life or actions, so that was very shocking to me - he let them get to his mind.
"All of [Iverson's family] depend on Iverson. He supports his mother and aunt and cousins and whoever. It's pathetic. I'm very glad I don't need A.I. for nothing."
After the July 3 incident, Jones said Bowman seemed to buddy up to Hakim with frequent phone calls, which surprised Jones. "Shaun didn't care for Hakim too much.
"I said, 'Don't you think that is strange? He calls you, and he has known me since 1998, and he's NOT calling me?' And he was like, 'Well, yeah.' "
Jones said he feels railroaded by what happened in court.
"I was hoping I would receive justice, but I didn't. It really bothers me.
"They make it seem like I am the one who broke the law. I was perfectly fine on my air mattress in my apartment. If [Allen Iverson] had come in like a gentleman, and like a man, and was like, 'Have you seen my wife and cousin?' and was trying to find them, no problem. But he threatened me.
"If I went to his house and did that, I'd still be in jail."
Jones says he's still shaken by the incident. "I am paranoid," he said. "I think people are following me. I tell my mother to keep the alarm system on."
He'd like to come back to Philly, but "I don't think it would be safe. My [former] landlord told me that a group of gentleman called up to the window one night from outside and said they were going to get me."
Still, he has fond words for Philly cops and detectives who worked the case.
"They believed me. They stood behind me and in front of me, they protected me, they were watching out for me. I like the cops and detectives there, I really do."
Should there come a day (and he doubts there ever will) when he has a chance to speak privately to Allen Iverson, "I would tell him he needs to act more like an adult and not like a child, and take responsibility for his actions.
"There will come a time or day when he does something wrong - and I am not saying I hope it will happen - and he will not be able to get off the way he did with this."
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Oh Lawd, Y'all, What's Up With Allen Iverson????
Lil' gangsta
Linear Mode
