CAVALIERS Lawyer: Wagner's stepdad sought guns for protection

The case could go to the jury today.
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) -- The stepfather of Cleveland Cavaliers guard Dajuan Wagner was not a drug dealer, but a man who liked to gamble and bought guns to protect his wife and famous stepson from a kidnapping, his lawyer told a federal jury Tuesday.
Leonard "Pooh" Paulk and three other men are on trial on charges they were part of a broad drug-dealing conspiracy in Camden from 2000 to 2003. Ten other men charged in the alleged ring last year have pleaded guilty, and some of them testified against Paulk and the others.
The case was expected to go to the jury no earlier than today.
In closing arguments Monday and Tuesday, a government lawyer told jurors that Paulk was at the center of the ring and assigned dealers to the airports, restaurants and highway rest stops where they could meet suppliers.
"Leonard Paulk was like a CEO or chess master moving pieces around the table," Assistant United States Attorney Jason Richardson said.
Charges
Paulk, who spent time in the 1990s in prison after a drug-dealing conviction, was charged with conspiracy to sell drugs and money laundering.
There were no charges related to buying guns, but part of the government's case against him revolved around his efforts in early 2002 to buy 20 guns. Paulk was willing to supply Jose Perez, a government informant, with cocaine in exchange for getting those guns, prosecutors said.
Paulk's lawyer, Dennis J. Cogan, said the deal never happened because the government informant was not going to provide the weapons and because Paulk was not willing to follow through on his promise to provide drugs.
Paulk's lawyer said his client, who did not testify, did not want to return to his old drug-dealing life.
"Who Leonard Paulk was in the past, he no longer is," Cogan said.
As a convicted felon, he could not legally buy weapons. So when the deal with Perez didn't happen, Paulk eventually obtained weapons elsewhere.
Kidnap plot?
Richardson said Paulk wanted the weapons to settle an old score. But Cogan said Paulk had a better reason: He had heard of a plot to kidnap Wagner and his mother -- Paulk's wife, Lisa Paulk -- and rape her.
Wagner then was at the University of Memphis and within a few months of declaring his intent to enter the NBA draft, a move that soon made him a millionaire.
Lisa Paulk and Leonard Paulk's sister both testified during the eight-week trial that they had heard of the plot and that an incarcerated drug dealer was behind it.
Tuesday, Cogan reminded jurors that he did not have proof that a plot existed, but said Paulk's reaction when he heard about it was important.
Lisa Paulk said her husband was "hysterical" about the possibility of a kidnapping.