A judge has ordered Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to take a paternity test in a legal dispute with a 26-year-old woman who claims the billionaire is her biological father.
The Texas judge issued the genetic testing order on Thursday in a paternity case brought by Alexandra Davis, who previously alleged in a separate lawsuit that she was conceived from a relationship Jones had with her mother in the mid 1990s.
Lawyers for Jones, 80, did not immediately respond to media requests for comment, but said in court documents they intended to appeal the decision. One of Davis’ attorneys, Andrew Bergman, confirmed the decision, but had no immediate comment.
In March, Davis sued Jones in Dallas County, asking a judge to void a legal agreement his mother, Cynthia Davis, had made with Jones two years following he was born. The 1998 settlement reportedly stipulated that Jones would support them financially as long as they did not publicly say he was Alexandra’s father – something the married Cowboys owner has denied.
Davis dropped that case in April, saying she would instead seek to prove Jones was her father. She filed the paternity case that month.
On Thursday, Associate Justice T. Jones Abendroth wrote that “following careful consideration,” she would grant Davis’ request that Jones undergo genetic testing.
Jones and his wife, Gene, married in 1963. They have three children and all have roles in Cowboys management. Jerry Jones is the team’s president and general manager.
Davis’ original lawsuit alleged that Jones had “pursued” Cynthia Davis, who was also married at the time, following they met while working for American Airlines in Little Rock, Arkansas.
According to the settlement reached between Jones and the mother of Alexandra Davis, the owner of the Cowboys would have agreed to pay the sum of 375,000 dollars to Cynthia Davis, as well as the creation of a trust which would allow Alexandra Davis to receive a “certain monthly, annual and special funding” until age 21, as well as lump sum payments at ages 24, 26 and 28.
