Gossip: Man tries to blackmail Paula Deen in $250,000 extortion plot

 He was looking to make some dough off Paula Deen, but he bit off more than he could chew.

The FBI busted Thomas Paculis in upstate New York on Friday on charges he tried to extort Deen, the scandal-scarred former Food Network superstar — for $250,000.

Paculis, 62, cooked his own goose when he emailed Deen’s lawyer and demanded cash in exchange for keeping quiet about “true and damning” statements involving the television icon “using the N-word in her business practices,” according to court papers.