DALLAS — A North Texas woman who claims Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is her father has now sued him for defamation, according to a new lawsuit filed in a Texarkana federal court.
Alexandra Davis, 26, alleges in the newly-filed lawsuit that Jones, a longtime Arkansas friend and a Cowboys spokesman "initiated a deliberate plan" to portray the billionaire's "own daughter ... as an 'extortionist' and a 'shakedown artist' whose motivation was money and greed."
ESPN first reported the lawsuit Monday evening, and Jones and his lawyers were unavailable for comment.
Davis filed the initial lawsuit in March of 2022, claiming Jones was her father and that the Cowboys owner had been paying her and her mother at least hundreds of thousands of dollars to conceal that secret, according to court documents.
The new lawsuit, filed on Monday in the Texarkana federal court, claims that in the weeks following the March 2022 lawsuit, Jones and his representatives embarked on a public campaign attacking her character, "based knowingly on false statements and accusations."
"Not once did Defendant Jones or any of his agents ever deny that Plaintiff was Defendant Jones' daughter," Davis' Dallas lawyers, Jay K. Gray and Andrew A. Bergman, wrote in the 22-page defamation complaint. "Instead, Defendant Jones chose the avenue of calling his own daughter an 'extortionist' merely to make his own public image less despicable by attempting to discredit Plaintiff's reputation and character in the public eye."
In December 2022, a judge ordered Jerry Jones to take a paternity test by Jan. 24 regarding the lawsuit filed by Davis. A Texas court of appeals delayed those paternal proceedings one day before that hearing was scheduled. The new deadline is May 29, according to Davis' lawyers.
The lawsuit claims that Davis' mother, Cynthia Spencer Davis, was courted by Jones in 1995 when she was working at the American Airlines ticket counter in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The lawsuit states "despite the emotional obstacles of being abandoned and shunned by her father and forced to live in secrecy, [Davis] excelled academically and professionally," graduating from Southern Methodist University and working as an aide for a Texas congressman. She also served as a White House aide for 14 months, the lawsuit stated.
In a statement from her lawyers to WFAA, Davis said her initial lawsuit had only one goal: For Jones to "acknowledge" he was her father.
"Rather than acknowledging his child, or even taking the opportunity to get to know his child, my father and his associates have publicly smeared my reputation and intentions," she told WFAA in the statement provided by her lawyers. "I have been falsely accused of a 'shakedown' and 'extortion.' In reality, I am a daughter who simply wants to acknowledge her father without fear of retribution. I will not stand by and let my father's actions or words define me or my future."
According to an ESPN report from last year, Andrew Bergman, one of Davis' lawyers, allegedly told Levi G. McCathern II, one of Jones' lawyers, in a meeting: "If you want this just to go away, it's going to cost you Zeke [Ezekiel Elliott] or Dak [Prescott] money."
Bergman told ESPN he had never asked for a dollar to settle the case.
This new lawsuit states Davis is seeking an unspecified amount in actual and punitive damages.
Here is a copy of Davis' full statement to WFAA:
"For 25 years I lived two lives. One life, determined for me before I could even walk, was built for the outside world in order to protect and lie for a man I would probably never know. This life was a life lived in fear – fear of being asked about my family because I was compelled to lie, and fear of my father’s power and will to retaliate against my mother and me should we ever reveal the truth. My second life was known only by attorneys, therapists, my mother, me, and my father, Jerry Jones. This life was the limited space I had to cope with the realization that my own father would rather use money to silence, conceal, and intimidate me than know his daughter.
As I became a young adult and built my own life, I could not continue to live in fear. I was no longer willing to keep a secret that should have never been mine to bear. I was unable to continue living in my father’s shadow. My autonomy had been taken away from me up until that point, and I was ready to take back my right to acknowledge who my father is. Filing for parentage was my way of standing up for myself and for my mother. I was relieved because I no longer had to lie about who I am. My two lives came together, or both went away, and my new life was born.
Rather than acknowledging his child, or even taking the opportunity to get to know his child, my father and his associates have publicly smeared my reputation and intentions. I have been falsely accused of a “shakedown” and “extortion.” In reality, I am a daughter who simply wants to acknowledge her father without fear of retribution. I will not stand by and let my father’s actions or words define me or my future."
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