Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said the woman claiming to be his daughter tried to extort him before filing a paternity suit, but her lawyer slammed him, calling it ‘sad and repugnant.’
Jones, 79, accused Alexandra Davis, 25, of trying to ‘make a deal’ prior to filing her paternity lawsuit, according to court filings on Monday, viewed by the Dallas Morning News.
The Cowboys owner said Davis’ team presented him the lawsuit prior to filing it and offered to not ‘publicly or privately identify’ the billionaire if he paid what she requested. He also said Davis filed a lawsuit against him after he denied to pay her and while the NFL was facing ‘monetary extortion attempts.’
‘She is not entitled to the relief she requests, and the Court does not have jurisdiction to grant it,’ court documents said, which were unsealed on Tuesday at Jones’s request.
Davis has denied ever asking Jones for money, and her lawyer said it was ‘sad’ that he would ‘damage his daughter more.’
‘It is sad and repugnant that he has chosen this path to damage his daughter more than he already has,’ her lawyer, Andrew Bergman, said on Tuesday. ‘I challenge Mr. Jones, or any of his multitude of lawyers, media and marketing representatives, crisis management teams, or anyone else on his behalf to publicly demonstrate the slightest truth to any of the allegations.’
Davis sued Jones earlier this month, alleging that he paid her mother, Cynthia Davis Spencer, $375,000 after they had an affair in the mid-1990s that resulted in the mother’s pregnancy in 1996.
The suit claims Jones organized two trust funds for Davis in Arkansas, where Davis Spencer was living when she gave birth to her daughter.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, 79, said that Alexandra Davis, 25, who claims to be his daughter, tried to extort him before filing a paternity suit. He also said Davis only filed the lawsuit after he denied to pay her
Davis (right) had appeared in the last season of ‘Big Rich Texas’ with her mother, Cynthia Davis Spencer. Davis Spencer had allegedly received $375,000 through a trust fund in 1995 if she and her daughter agreed to stay quiet about their relationship with Jones. Davis has denied asking Jones for money and her lawyer called the excuse ‘sad and repugnant’
Jones’s filing from Monday says he was sued only after he refused Davis’s request to ‘make a deal’ to ‘assure that he would not be publicly or privately identified’ as her father
In her March 3 filing, Davis asked the Dallas County court to rule that Jones’s agreement with her mother was unenforceable in Texas and to confirm that he is, in fact, her father.
Jones, who has been married to wife Eugenia for nearly 60 years, hasn’t confirmed or denied Davis’s accusation. Attorneys for the father-of-three made no reference to that claim in Monday’s motion, but they did argue that the case should be moved to family court rather than civil court due to her parentage allegations.
Monday, at the league owners meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, he told reporters that the lawsuit was a ‘personal matter.’
He did, however, address other accusations against the team, including reports that the Cowboys paid $2.4 million to four cheerleaders who accused longtime team public relations executive Rich Dalrymple of taking naked photos of them while they changed clothes in 2015.
Dalrymple, who retired last month, was also separately accused of taking up-skirt photos of Jones’s daughter Charlotte, according to a February report by ESPN. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Speaking for the first time since the report, Jones defended the club, claiming that the accusations came about because the Cowboys are a high-profile organization.
‘When you spend going-on-30-something years, saying: ”Look at us, hey, wait, you’re looking away, look at us, we’re the Cowboys” — when you go that way, then when you have some things you may not want to look at, you get looked at,’ he told reporters Monday.
He said it was in the best interest of the team to settle the nondisclosure agreement with the cheerleaders.
‘Nothing about that that was an effort to adjudicate guilt or innocence,’ he said. ‘It was about what was in the best interest of the pecking order starting with alleged victims.’
Jones also said Dalrymple’s retirement had been planned, and did not come as a result of the accusations against the former senior vice president for public relations and communications.
Retired Cowboys communications director Rich Dalrymple (pictured) is accused of secretly recording team cheerleaders as they undressed in their private locker room
The specific cheerleaders who made the accusation have not been identified publicly
As for Davis and her lawsuit, Jones’s attorneys claimed in Monday’s filing that she ‘will be the subject of other litigation which has been filed or will be instituted shortly.’
‘She is not entitled to the relief she requests, and the Court does not have jurisdiction to grant it,’ read Jones’s motion.
According to the lawsuit, Davis was bound by a confidentiality agreement signed by her mother, a former American Airlines ticket agent, when she was just a one-year-old. The agreement created two trusts for the mother and daughter as long as they kept Jones’ paternity a secret.
Davis, who works as an aide for former Presidential physician and current US congressman Ronny Jackson (Republican-Texas), ‘has lived her life fatherless and in secret and in fear that if she should tell anyone who her father was, she and her mother would lose financial support, or worse,’ the lawsuit states.
She has asked the court to release her from the confidentially agreement that her mother agreed to when she was a baby and to be recognized under the law as a daughter of Jones, whose estimated net worth is reportedly $10.6 billion.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Davis Spencer and her daughter were the ‘Cindy and Alex’ cast members on the third season of the Dallas reality TV show ‘Big Rich Texas.’ The duo were the newcomers for the final season, where Davis Spencer was listed as a single mom ‘living off a trust fund.’
Davis (right, pictured with her mother on the 2013 reality show) has asked the court to release her from the confidentially agreement that her mother agreed to when she was a baby and to be recognized under the law as Jones’ daughter
Jones has been married to Eugenia Jones, 75, for 59 years, and they have three children – Stephen, 57, Jerry Jr., 52, and Charlotte Jones Anderson, 55. The Jones children all work for the Cowboys.
Davis’s lawsuit claims that Jones began courting Davis Spencer in 1995 when she was working at an American Airlines ticket counter in Little Rock, Arkansas, just as she was in the middle of divorcing her husband.
It goes on to say that Jones ‘abandoned and shunned’ Davis after she was born in Little Rock on December 16, 1996.
‘The combined effects of the aforementioned agreements and Cynthia’s divorce proceedings resulted in [Davis] never having a legal father,’ the lawsuit says.
‘Defendant Jones’ only role in Plaintiff’s life to date other than to shun her, has been to coerce her from ever disclosing his identity.’
Davis Spencer had worked at an American Airlines ticket counter in Little Rock, Arkansas, when Jones allegedly courted her. The paternity suit claims he shunned the family after Davis was born in December 16, 1996
A DNA test between Davis and Davis Spencer’s former husband revealed he was not the biological father and didn’t have to pay child support, the lawsuit claims.
Davis alleges that once Jones discovered that Davis Spencer was going to be a single mother, he negotiated a ‘hush money’ settlement.
Jones supposedly agreed to ‘provide, through indirect means and with his personal identity hidden, ongoing financial support for Cynthia and Plaintiff so long as Cynthia remained silent about the fact that he was [Davis’] father,’ the lawsuit states.
‘If Cynthia failed to maintain such silence, the support would end at Defendant Jones’ discretion and Cynthia would supposedly be in breach of the deal.’
The settlement, according to the lawsuit, also included monthly and annual funds for Davis until she turned 21, with additional payments set up for when she turned 24, 26 and 28.
Jerry Jones is pictured attending the 11th Annual NFL Honors event with his wife of 59 years Eugenia and two of their their three children – Stephen Jones (far left) and Charlotte Jones (second from left)
