Defamation lawsuit against Jerry Jones by woman claiming to be his daughter dismissed

A defamation lawsuit against Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones by a woman claiming to be his daughter has been dismissed in federal court, according to court documents.

Western District of Arkansas Judge Robert W. Schroeder III dismissed the suit Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed by Alexandra Davis, claimed Jones and two other men made defamatory statements about her after she filed a different lawsuit in which she claimed Jones was her father.

She claimed Jones, along with Donald Jack and Cowboys spokesperson Jim Wilkinson “propagated [an] extortion narrative” about her by claiming she was like “other supposed bad actors” trying to get money from Jones.

An affidavit by Jack stating that Davis in 2017 asked Jones to pay her $20 million before payments from a trust were set to expire was a key component of the defamation lawsuit. Davis denied that she asked Jones for money, but in a letter she told the court she read to Jack in 2017, Davis wrote that she knew “another illegitimate child in the Jones family had received $20 million” and that if she could get that same amount she would be out of Jones’ life.

Paternity lawsuit

The whole case was ultimately sparked by a lawsuit Davis filed in March 2022, claiming that Jones was her biological father and he’d been making “hush money” payments to Davis and her mother for years. In December 2022, Jones was ordered by a Dallas court to submit to a paternity test as a result.

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The paternity lawsuit sought an advisory opinion saying that Davis is not bound by a deal Davis’ lawyers says her mother signed for financial support in exchange for a promise. The agreement, the lawsuit claims, requires Davis and her mother to never reveal that Jones is her father.

Jones’ lawyers claimed in a legal response submitted to the court in the original lawsuit that all the allegations were false and the court does not have the power to release Davis from the settlement because it doesn’t exist. His attorneys demanded “strict proof” of every one of Davis’ claims.

His attorneys said in the legal response that the lawsuit “is submersed in hypothetical and contingent scenarios that are not justiciable because they have not occurred.”

Davis says in the lawsuit she was born after her mother, Cynthia Davis Spencer, had an affair with Jones while working for American Airlines at the airport in Little Rock, Arkansas. Spencer was “pursued romantically” by Jones and had a relationship, Davis claims in the lawsuit.

During divorce proceedings, Spencer’s then-husband had a court-ordered paternity test conducted and found that Davis was not his biological child. In 1998 when the divorce was finalized, it included a finding that Spencer’s ex-husband was not Davis’ biological or legal father, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims that as soon as Spencer found out that her ex-husband was not Davis’ father, she told Jones he was the father. Jones told her he was “not biologically capable of impregnating a female,” according to the suit.

Spencer and Jones negotiated a settlement, which the lawsuit describes as “hush money,” in which Jones agreed to pay about $27,000 to Spencer to resolve the divorce. Another $30,000 was paid to continue negotiations in “good faith.”

When the settlement was finalized, Jones agreed to pay a lump sum of $375,000 for confidentiality and set up two trusts funded by Jones for Alexandra Davis, according to the lawsuit. Davis would receive “certain monthly, annual and special funding” from the trusts until she turned 21, after which she would receive annual lump sums at 24, 26 and 28 years old, according to the suit.

The suit says the trust was established under the name of Jones’ attorney and friend, Donald Jack, to hide Jones’ identity. The settlement included a requirement that then-1-year-old Davis and her mother never claim or mention that Jones was Davis’ father and prohibited both Spencer and Davis from suing Jones under the threat that the money would be cut off.

Davis said the only time she revealed Jones to be her father before the lawsuit was filed in a Dallas court was when she underwent a security check by the FBI to work in the Trump White House.

Jones’ attorneys said in their legal response that Davis “delivered a draft of her lawsuit to Defendant [Jones] and, to borrow her phrase, asked whether he would like to ‘make a deal’ to ‘assure that he would not be publicly or privately identified and/or declared as Plaintiff’s father.’ “

His attorneys said in the response the lawsuit was filed when Jones said he wouldn’t pay and that Davis “is not entitled to the relief she requests, and the court does not have jurisdiction to grant it.”