The Dallas Cowboys’ first training camp news conference was postponed because team owner and general manager Jerry Jones was testifying in a legal battle with a 27-year-old woman who claims to be his biological daughter. ESPN reported on Monday.
Alexandra Davis filed a paternity suit against the billionaire in 2022. He has since filed a countersuit, alleging that her filing violated a contract signed by Davis’ mother on her behalf in 1998.
Both Davis’ lawsuit and the subsequent defamation suit were dismissed, though ESPN reports that her lawyers are considering filing an appeal. But before that can happen, a decision needs to be made on Jones’ countersuit.
Jones has denied being Davis’s father.
The Cowboys return to Oxnard, California, for training camp, marking the 18th consecutive year they have prepared for the season in the Pacific. The team previously held training camp at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks from 1963 to 1989.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones testified in a Texarkana courtroom on Monday
Alexandra Davis, 26, first sued Jones in 2022 to be recognized as his biological daughter.
In February, Jones was ordered to take a paternity test into the matter, but the results of that test have not been released.
Davis’ attorney, Kris Hayes, called the ruling a “huge victory,” adding, “Alex is in a position where he really no longer has to hide his truth or live under the yoke of fear and maybe he’ll finally get some peace and we hope other families will have the same benefit from the judge following the law.”
She alleges that she was conceived as a result of a relationship between Jones and her mother, Cynthia Davis, in the mid-1990s.
Court documents say Jones and Cynthia Davis reached an agreement in which he agreed to support them financially as long as they did not publicly identify him as Alexandra’s father.
Alexandra’s lawsuit filed on March 3, 2022, sought to have a court declare that she was not bound by that agreement. She later withdrew the lawsuit and instead sought a way to legally prove that Jones is her father through evidence.
A previous judge had issued a ruling requiring Jones to undergo genetic testing, but Jones’ lawyers appealed. The Feb. 19 ruling is the result of that appeal.
During that hearing, three attorneys representing the Cowboys owner argued that a man who was married to Cynthia when Alexandra was born was her alleged father.
Davis’ attorneys said that was not true and filed Arkansas court documents stating in “clear and obvious words” that the man Cynthia was married to at the time was not her father. Cynthia and that man have since separated.
Hayes argued that because Alexandra Davis does not have an alleged father, Jones must admit paternity or agree to testing.