x
Breaking News
More () »

Report: Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has already paid nearly $3 million to woman claiming to be his daughter in lawsuit

Alexandra Davis filed the lawsuit against Jones, alleging that Jones is her biological father, and that both she and her mother have been paid to conceal the secret.

DALLAS — Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has already paid almost $3 million to the woman who is claiming that he is her biological father, according to an ESPN report.

The article said that Alexandra Davis, the woman who filed a lawsuit against Jones, had her full tuition at Southern Methodist University paid for, and received a $70,000 Range Rover vehicle during a lavish 16th birthday celebration as a part of these payments.

ESPN said it obtained this information from the Little Rock, Arkansas, lawyer Don Jack, who allegedly delivered these payments for Jones.

Jones and his lawyers recently asked a judge to dismiss the paternity lawsuit filed against him, saying the woman alleging to be his daughter had asked Jones to "make a deal" before going public with the case.

Jones' legal team successfully filed a motion to seal documents in the case -- but not before reporters with ESPN and the Dallas Morning News were able to obtain copies of the filings. WFAA later independently obtained a copy of that original petition.

On Thursday, a hearing was to be held regarding a motion to seal additional documents relation to the case, but that hearing was canceled when Jones' lawyers withdrew the request at the last minute. As of Friday, it is unknown when Jones' team will be back in court.

Davis, a 25-year-old woman from Dallas, filed the original lawsuit against Jones on March 3, alleging that Jones is her biological father, and that both she and her mother have been paid at least hundreds of thousands of dollars to conceal that secret.

In a plea document asking to dismiss the case, Jones' lawyers Levi G. McCathern and Charles L. Babcock argued that the court does not have jurisdiction over the case and that Davis' claims are "submersed in hypothetical and contingent scenarios that are not justiciable because they have not occurred."

"This Court cannot assert jurisdiction over unripe claims and [Davis] cannot create it via her suit for declaratory relief," Jones' lawyers wrote in the filing. "Accordingly, this Court should dismiss [Davis'] claims with prejudice."

Jones' lawyers said Davis sent Jones a draft of her lawsuit before it was filed and "asked whether he would like to 'make a deal' to 'assure that he would not be publicly or privately identified and/or declared as [Davis'] father,'" the filing said.

Jones "declined to pay," according to his lawyers, and the lawsuit was then filed.

Jones' lawyers described Davis has having made "'let's make a deal' overtures." At the same time, Jones and the Cowboys were being made "the targets of multiple monetary extortion attempts," the filing from Jones' lawyers said.

Jones' lawyers also said the "potential source(s) of those attempted extortions" will be "the subject of other litigation which has been filed or will be instituted shortly," according to the court documents.

Jones' lawyers argued that the 192nd Judicial Court in Dallas County does not have jurisdiction over paternity issues. Their filing also denied all allegations made in Davis' initial lawsuit against Jones.

According to Davis' lawsuit earlier this month, she asked to be recognized as Jones' daughter and released from the confidentiality agreement that her mother agreed to on her behalf and without her consent when she was a baby.

"It is hard to imagine what could be less in the best interest of a child than to enforce agreements that leave a child without a father and which prevent or legally punish a child from even stating who her father is," the lawsuit said.

That initial lawsuit also notes that, "forever the deal making entrepreneur that [Jones] is, [he] decided to do what he always does – 'make a deal' to assure that he would not be publicly or privately identified and/or declared as Plaintiff's father."

Jones and his wife Gene have three children – Stephen, Jerry Jr. and Charlotte Jones Anderson – each of whom works as an executive vice president within the Dallas Cowboys organization.

Jones' attorneys have not commented on the case, and Jones on Monday, while speaking at the NFL annual meetings in Florida, declined to comment on it, calling it a "personal issue," according to ESPN.

The paternity case is just one of a number issues in a tumultuous offseason for Jones and the Cowboys.

Most notably, in February, it was revealed that the team paid four Cowboys cheerleaders a sum of $2.4 million after they accused longtime franchise executive Rich Dalrymple of taking photos inside the cheerleaders' locker room in 2015.

Dalrymple, the team's former senior vice president of public relations and communications, retired shortly before an ESPN report revealed the allegations.

According to ESPN, the Cowboys also had investigated Dalrymple after he was accused by a lifelong Cowboys fan of taking "upskirt" photos of team senior vice president and Jerry Jones' daughter Charlotte Jones Anderson during the 2015 NFL Draft. The fan, who ESPN reports later signed an affidavit, watched the livestream of the Cowboys war room when he allegedly saw Dalrymple take multiple potentially lewd photos of Jones Anderson.

Dalrymple has denied all of the allegations, and Jones has since defended the organization's workplace culture.

   

Before You Leave, Check This Out