February 29, 2024, 1:25 p.m. ET
DALLAS (AP) — A judge has upheld a ruling requiring Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to take a paternity test as part of a legal battle with a 27-year-old woman who claims the billionaire is her biological father.
A Texas judge on Wednesday rejected an appeal by Jones of a 2022 ruling in a paternity case brought by Alexandra Davis, who had previously claimed in a separate lawsuit that she was conceived from a relationship Jones had with her in the mid-1990s mother had.
Jones' lawyers are challenging the constitutionality of the Texas law that would require genetic testing of Jones.
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In March 2022, Davis sued Jones in Dallas County, asking a judge to overturn a legal agreement that her mother, Cynthia Davis, said she made with Jones two years after her birth. The 1998 settlement reportedly stated that Jones would support them financially as long as they didn't publicly say he was Alexandra's father – something the Cowboys' married owner has denied.
Davis dropped the case a month later, saying she would instead try to prove Jones was her father. She soon filed for paternity.
Jones and his wife Gene married in 1963. They have three children and all work in the Cowboys' front office. Jerry Jones, 81, is team president and general manager.
Davis' original lawsuit alleged that Jones “pursued” Cynthia Davis, who was also married at the time, after they met while she worked for American Airlines in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Their settlement reportedly called for Jones to pay $375,000 to Cynthia Davis and for Alexandra Davis to receive “certain monthly, annual and special funding” from a trust until she turned 21, as well as lump sum payments when she turned 24, 26 and 28 .
Lawyers for Jones say Alexandra Davis received “millions of dollars” from Jones over the course of her life, according to court documents.