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Overshadowed by the past few days' events involving Michael Vick, Pacman Jones returns briefly to the public consciousness next week when he is scheduled to be arraigned in Las Vegas on two felony counts of coercion, stemming from a Feb. 19 melee at a nightclub that led to the shooting of three people.

Jones, who has been suspended by commissioner Roger Goodell for the entire 2007 NFL season, will not have to appear in court. It is expected that counsel will enter a not guilty plea on his behalf and a trial date might be set at that time.

Jones' lawyer, Robert Langford, said he made an initial appearance on Jones' behalf Thursday, while representing a woman charged with Jones and Jones' bodyguard in the Feb. 19 fracas.

Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo waived Monday's scheduled court date and set an Oct. 29 preliminary hearing for Jones, Sadia Morrison and Robert Reid, said Langford, who represents all three defendants.

A spokeswoman for Clark County District Attorney David Roger confirmed the new date. Jones, Morrison and Reid remained free on bail and didn't appear in person.

Las Vegas police have described Reid, 37, of Carson, Calif., as Jones' bodyguard. He faces one felony coercion charge alleging he attacked a Minxx bouncer who tried to restrain Jones.

Langford said the judge let him stand in for Jones and Reid while he was in court Thursday representing Morrison, 25, of New York. She faces five charges, including coercion, felony assault with a deadly weapon and battery stemming from allegations that she hit a bouncer in the head with a bottle and attacked other club employees with a chair and a stanchion.

Jones, the troubled Tennessee Titans cornerback, faces 12 years in prison and $10,000 in fines if convicted. The incident at the Minxx nightclub left one man, security guard Tom Urbanski, paralyzed from the waist down.

Police have not arrested the shooter in the incident, which was spawned when Jones and some other high-profile guests began tossing dollar bills in the air. But they believe that, because of statements from witnesses, Jones knows the identity of the gunman.

"This is a young man who is telling everyone that he's turned his life around," Clark County district attorney David Roger told ESPN.com this week. "If he really wants to demonstrate that, he should come in and talk to the police ... because they feel like he knows what went on and who the shooter was."

Jones has not been charged in the shooting and his defense team may argue, provided the case goes to trial, that a statement from a member of the Minxx security team indicates that their client did not act with coercive intent during the fight. The statement, provided to police by Minxx floor host Henry Jenkins only two hours after the incident, portrays Jones as belligerent, but makes no mention of verbal threats attributed to him by bouncer Aaron Cudworth, one of the men shot that night.

A copy of Jenkins' 36-page statement was obtained by ESPN. In a police report, Cudworth cited Jones as yelling, "I'm gonna [expletive] kill ya. ... Matter of fact, all you are gonna get it."

Jenkins did not cite such a threat in his statement to two police officers but acknowledged that, at one point in the brawl, Jones was brandishing a weapon behind his back. "I assumed he had a gun," Jenkins told police.

In another part of his statement, Jenkins, who did not witness the shooting, which took place outside the club, said Jones was combative.

"And then he was really aggressive, and he was coming right toward me and [Cudworth], and he had his hand behind his back. ... Yeah, he was coming straight at us. ... And he's got the rest of his crew."

Jones' attorneys acknowledged that, while Jenkins' statement hardly portrays their client as a choirboy, it is a key bit of evidence because it illustrates that he was not coercive.

"I'm not saying he's pure as the driven snow in all this," Langford, who is based out of Las Vegas, told the Las Vegas Review Journal last week, "but Jenkins heard him say, 'Stop disrespecting my women.' That's not a death threat."

Manny Arora, the Atlanta-based attorney who represents Jones, said Jenkins' statement could be key in his client's defense.

"He's the one credible witness who saw what happened," Arora said. "Everyone else involved has sued [Jones]. You know, when money starts going in the water, people's stories tend to morph. But if this goes to trial, here's the one guy who told police what he saw, and who hasn't brought any kind of civil action."

Reminded that Jenkins did not witness the shooting, but told by another club employee that Jones was not the gunman, Arora noted that his client is not charged with the shooting, only with events that took place during the melee inside the club. Several attempts to reach Jenkins were unsuccessful.

Citing the evidentiary nature of Jenkins' statement, Roger declined to comment directly on it.

"But I would say that if we go trial," the district attorney said, "we feel confident that we will present a strong case."

Senior writer Len Pasquarelli covers the NFL for ESPN.com. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.