Edward Mitchell Davis told people he contacted that police were on their way to arrest them and the only way to avoid jail was to pay him immediately for debts the people often didn't even owe, prosecutors said.

If he thought they were immigrants, Davis told them they could be deported if they didn't pay or could be arrested at the airport when they next returned from a trip abroad, according to court records.

Davis,55, was sentenced to 270 days in jail, fined $499 and placed on probation for five years on Aug. 4 after pleading guilty in October to extortion and attempted extortion, prosecutor Tricia Pummill said.

As part of a plea agreement, Davis promised to repay $40,864 to people he pressured to pay, Pummill said. Davis also agreed to repay anyone else who comes forward with proof that they made payments to his company, ARM Financial, because of extortion.

Davis “was collecting bills too aggressively,” said his lawyer, William McGuigan.

“He's not a violent person or an evil person,” McGuigan said. He said Davis has repaid money he collected improperly.

The debts Davis collected “were all legitimate but some were too old,” McGuigan said.

Pummill said the unpaid debts Davis collected often were on long-dormant or inactive accounts, some going back more than 10 years.

“Most of these people didn't even have debts,” Pummill said. “It had been paid off or forgiven or they (debtors) had declared bankruptcy and it had been discharged.”

Davis' undoing came from a former employee who was sick of pressuring people to pay and a man Davis threatened with arrest and deportation to get him to pay an old bill.

Investigators first learned of Davis in December 2003 when a man called prosecutors to complain about what he considered coercive collection practices.

The man said that someone who identified himself as a lawyer by the name of Ed Smith called him about a $1,500 debt from 1991, according to court records.

The so-called lawyer, later identified by investigators as Davis, told the man that he was facing criminal charges over the unpaid debt and had to pay $7,000 to cover the debt and court fees, according to the records.

While investigators were investigating his complaint, a man who once worked for Davis called the District Attorney's Office in April 2004 to alert it to what he said were unfair business practices Davis instructed him to use.

The former employee said he told debtors to call Davis' company about a debt. Davis would then tell the debtors that the court action could be stopped if they made immediate arrangements to pay the debt through Davis.

Pummill said Davis' high-pressure, illegal debt collection practices are all too common.

“It's a huge problem,” Pummill said.

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Ray Huard: (619) 542-4597; ray.huard@uniontrib.com