Cowboys owner Jerry Jones ordered to take paternity test
A judge has ordered Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to take a paternity test as part of a legal dispute with a 26-year-old woman who claims the billionaire is her biological father.
A Texas judge issued the order for genetic testing Thursday in a paternity case brought by Alexandra Davis, who previously alleged in a separate lawsuit she was conceived from a relationship Jones had with her mother in the mid-1990s.
Attorneys for Jones did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday, but said in court filings that they intend to appeal the decision.
One of Davis' lawyers, Andrew Bergman, confirmed the decision, but did not immediately offer any other comment. In March, Davis sued Jones in Dallas County, asking a judge to void a legal agreement she said her mother, Cynthia Davis, reached with Jones two years after she was born. The 1998 settlement allegedly said that Jones would support them financially as long as they didn't publicly say he was Alexandra's father — something the married owner of the Cowboys denied.
Davis dropped that case in April, saying that she would instead seek to prove that Jones is her father. She filed the paternity case that month.
On Thursday, Associate Judge T. Jones Abendroth wrote that "after careful consideration" she would grant Davis' motion to have Jones undergo genetic testing.
The 80-year-old Jones and his wife, Gene, were married in 1963. They have three children, and all have front office roles with the Cowboys. Jerry Jones is the team president and general manager.
Davis' original lawsuit claimed that Jones "pursued" Cynthia Davis, who was also married at the time, after they met while she was working for American Airlines out of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Their settlement allegedly called for Jones to pay Cynthia Davis $375,000 and for Alexandra Davis to receive a "certain monthly, annual and special funding" from a trust until she was 21, as well as lump sum payments when she turned 24, 26 and 28.
Jones also made headlines recently after news outlets, including North Dakota's CBS affiliate, reported about a controversial 1957 photo Jones was spotted in that was taken outside a high school where a group of white students appeared to be blocking a group of Black students from entering the school. Jones said he showed up to see what was going on and not to participate in the mob.