St. Louis • Joe Adams' license plate reads "ATTACK."

The private investigator is always playing offense. He is also well-armed, known to keep a gun in his refrigerator and a machine gun in his living room.

The tall tales that have appeared in publications are a testimony to his persona: He once threw someone into a volcano, he has been taped to a chair and interrogated, he knows "bloody fear" and he once killed a man with a stun gun.

Adams was asked about the tales during a deposition in 2010. He said he never killed someone with a stun gun. He did say that he dropped a fugitive into a ravine in Costa Rica that turned out to be a volcano.

He also denied ever telling the Post-Dispatch, "I'm a real bad dog." The quote appeared in a story in 1988, with Adams adding that anyone who knows him wouldn't want him as an enemy.

In his deposition, Adams also claimed he was friends with Frank Sinatra, who told him there's no such thing as bad press. "Just make sure they spell your name right," Adams remembered the crooner saying.

Adams in recent years became a key player in the divorce of Ray Vinson and Deanna Daughhetee — going from bodyguard for Daughhetee, to plotting ways to give her an edge in the divorce and, eventually, to becoming Daughhetee's new husband.

Adams, 61, has described himself as a former Marine and bodyguard for the Nicaraguan Contras — a "professional soldier" who transferred his skills to private investigation and security.

He has also had his share of run-ins with the law.

In 1983, the government investigated Adams for his connection to the Latin underworld. Adams has said that he worked as a bodyguard to Florida drug dealers. He agreed to cooperate with authorities to escape the threat of prosecution and a 45-year prison sentence. Adams became a key witness against three Miami businessmen, which led to what was then the biggest drug seizure in St. Louis history.

In 1988, Adams pleaded guilty to a federal charge in connection with an attempt to blow up a Nicaraguan bridge in 1985. Adams was fined $50 and given one day's probation. Adams worked as a chief of security for the Contras, rebels seeking to overthrow the Nicaraguan government at the time.

According to news accounts, Adams helped put together a list of Nicaraguan officials to be assassinated if the rebels gained power. Among them were then-President Daniel Ortega, priests and a nun.

Adams later settled down in St. Louis but still ran into trouble. In 1997, he pleaded guilty of conspiracy to bribe a Maplewood police officer. Adams had hired the officer to stop a chiropractor's car and then make an arrest after finding planted evidence. The doctor was in the middle of a custody battle. Adams was fined $1,000.

By 2005, Adams was working for Daughhetee as a bodyguard and investigator. He married her after her divorce from Vinson was finalized.

Adams at some point decided his experience could make a reality show. In 2008, a trailer for the proposed show, "The Detective," was posted on YouTube. In one scene, he traverses a runway, directing a team of guards and watching over Daughhetee as she exits from a private plane. In others, he is portrayed as a hardboiled detective, shown on a smoke-filled sidewalk and interrogating "a criminal" on the streets.

"I like the riskier cases just because of my background as a professional soldier," he says in the video. "I tend to go in for the kill."