POCATELLO — John Kent Davis, the Pocatello doctor accused of trying to hire someone to beat his ex-wife, said he wanted his former wife “mugged beyond belief,” according to documents submitted in federal court Thursday.

    According to federal court documents, the man he hired was actually an undercover FBI agent posing as a member of a nomad “biker gang.” And when the agent asked Davis if he wanted his ex-wife, now a resident of Coeur d’Alene, to survive, Davis reportedly said, “How much for that,” and then laughed.

    Davis allegedly then told the agent to beat his ex-wife, “I mean really hurt her, not kind of hurt her.”

    According to the complaint filed against Davis, he also discussed hiring the undercover agent to beat his ex-wife’s Pocatello attorney in the future.

    “I want him hurt worse that I want my ex-wife hurt,” Davis reportedly told the undercover FBI agent.

    The doctor allegedly also told the FBI agent that he knew a guy in New York who would do the job for $7,000, plus expenses and the agent agreed to beat the attorney for $5,000.

    Dr. Davis reportedly told the agent that he should wait awhile so the two beatings would not be connected.

   Davis, 65, was arraigned Tuesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Larry M. Boyle on charges of interstate communication of a threat of bodily injury.

    U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced that a federal complaint was filed in U.S. District Court on Aug. 13 and Davis was arrested at his Pocatello home on Monday without incident.

    A search of the residence on Butte Street in Pocatello reportedly netted $14,000 in cash, an envelope bearing the name and address of the undercover agent and contact information for the Spokane woman who alerted the ex-wife to the plot.

    During a preliminary hearing Thursday, Davis was represented by Idaho Falls Attorney Alan Johnston.

    Boyle noted that Davis had submitted a financial disclosure statement that included a $295,000 retirement fund and $360,000 in investments, and he said the defendant most likely would not qualify for a public defender.

    The judge appointed Johnston to represent Davis in the hearing Thursday and ordered the defendant to reimburse the U.S. court for that cost.

    Davis appeared wearing a striped jail jumpsuit and looking frail and disheveled.

     He said that he had not received a prescribed eye ointment while incarcerated and he complained of abdominal distress.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Wick said that Davis had been examined – X-rays were done and lab tests conducted — and he was cleared by doctors at Portneuf Medical Center before being transported to jail.

    Following his arrest Monday, Davis also allegedly told agents that he was suicidal and believed he should be evaluated before he was incarcerated. But he was told by U.S. marshals that the jail was equipped to handle that.

    Davis, who was part of a medical team that traveled to Tanzania in 2010, is being held at the Bingham County Jail without bond.

    The names of the victim and witnesses in the case were not released.

    Wick called just one witness during the probable cause hearing.

    FBI Special Agent Edward Jacobson, of Coeur d’Alene, testified about how the plot came to the attention of law enforcement officials.    

    Jacobson is also the director for the North Idaho Violent Crimes Task Force.

    Jacobson testified that recorded conversations and video show that Davis arranged to pay $3,000 for beating up his ex-spouse with half the money being paid upfront and the remainder when the job was done.

    In an excerpt from that recorded conversation, Davis is heard telling the undercover agent that “there is someone in Coeur d’Alene that isn’t a very good friend of mine.”

    The doctor also told the undercover agent that he wanted the beating to be “just short of permanent.”

    Jacobson said Davis informed the undercover agent that his former wife usually wore a diamond ring worth about $13,000. He said he didn’t want the ring, but told the FBI agent that if it was going to look like a mugging, he needed to take the ring and her purse.

    Jacobson said law enforcement learned about his scheme to harm his ex-wife after Davis solicited an escort in Spokane, Wash., from the website, backpage.com.

    Davis reportedly contacted the woman in February and March, and said he wasn’t in need of an escort, but wanted to hire her to make harassing phone calls to his ex-wife.

    The woman was paid $1,000 through a series of alleged transfers and the escort said she only spoke to the ex-wife once.     

    The escort told Davis’s ex-wife that she was his fiancé and she asked why the ex would not let him see his children, according to the FBI agent.

    The escort, who Jacobson referred to as “the cooperator,” said Davis told her that he was a doctor in Pocatello and that his ex-wife had ruined his life by getting his medical license revoked over unpaid child support.

     According to court documents, Davis was ordered to pay $1,600 per month in child support for the couple’s two children.

    Davis allegedly also told the escort that he and his ex-wife had been involved in a car accident that resulted in his ex-spouse being knocked out, and that he considered cutting off her airway while she was unconscious.

    The cooperator said Davis told her to stop calling because it wasn’t making his ex-wife jealous.

    Johnston noted that back child support has since been paid and Davis’s license was reinstated in June.

    The cooperator said she didn’t hear from Davis again until June when he called with another proposition.

    “(Davis) told her that he would pay $100,000 to kill (the ex-wife), $10,000 if they put her in the hospital and $5,000 if they bloodied her up,” Jacobson testified Thursday.

    The escort told him that she couldn’t kill anyone, but her boyfriend would beat the woman up and they discussed payment arrangements.

    Jacobson said Davis transferred $2,200 of the first $2,500 payment through Western Union, the U.S. Postal Service and three separate online payers.

    According to the complaint, Davis called the cooperator multiple times following that conversation, sometimes several times a day, to see if the job had been completed.

    She told him that they had surveyed the victim’s home in Coeur d’Alene, just 30 minutes east of Spokane, but had not completed the job.

    Jacobson said that the couple never did travel to the Coeur d’Alene home.

    Instead the escort texted the ex-wife and told her that Davis planned to harm her and that she had a recorded a conversation to prove that.

    The escort said she agreed to do the beating because she feared that Davis would just find someone else to do it.

    The defendant’s ex-wife reportedly took the text to Coeur d’Alene police, who transferred the case to the Northern Idaho Violent Crimes Task Force, and investigators contacted the escort in Spokane.

    The escort made recorded calls to Davis in Pocatello and told him that they couldn’t do the job, but knew a biker — the undercover FBI agent — who would most likely do it for less money.

    Court records reveal that from that point on in the investigation, Davis communicated and negotiated exclusively with the FBI agent posing as a nomad biker.

    “You really don’t have any proof that he wasn’t just making it up, do you,” defense attorney Johnston asked the FBI agent.

    Boyle ruled that there was probable cause for the charge and detained Davis. The court did not schedule any future court dates.