DALLAS — Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and his lawyers have 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 also filed a motion to seal documents in the case, in court filings Monday. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday.
Alexandra Davis, a 25-year-old woman from Dallas, filed the 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, according to court records.
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 said.
Jones' lawyers 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 as 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.
The 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 the case, calling it a "personal issue," according to ESPN.
The paternity case marked another issue in a tumultuous offseason for Jones and the Cowboys.
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 photos of Jones Anderson.
Dalrymple has denied all of the allegations, and Jones has since defended the organization's workplace culture.