A Colorado gynecologist is accused in a lawsuit of having used his own sperm to father at least six children, and potentially dozens or even hundreds more, after promising couples that they would be given sperm from anonymous donors, CBS News reports.
Dr. Paul Jones is 80-years-old and still has a license to practice medicine in Colorado. During the ’70s and ’80s, an untold number of couples went to him seeking help for male fertility issues. According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of half a dozen of his biological children, he promised those couples that they would be given sperm from anonymous donors. Instead, they allege that he used his own.
A Texas woman, Maia Emmons-Boring, says she found out that Jones could be her biological father when she got an anonymous message from a woman claiming to be her half-sister, which she (the woman) found out after purchasing and using a commercial ancestry DNA testing kit. Emmons-Boring says that when she read the e-mail, her heart sank, learning that the man whom she thought was her dad is not her biological father, nor that of her sister.
“I was completely shocked, like an out-of-body experience is the best way to describe it. I sobbed,” she said.
She was not alone.
Using the commercial ancestry DNA testing process, Emmons-Boring says she was led to other likely half-siblings, all of whom were allegedly fathered by Dr. Jones.
One half-sibling she found was Ryan Gray of Broomfield, Colorado, who explains what he felt when he saw the message from Emmons-Boring.
“I had to read the message several times just to comprehend what she was saying,” he said.
Gray plans to sue, just as Emmons-Boring and her sister have. They allege medical negligence, lack of informed consent, fraud, and battery.
Dr. Jones is not, however, accused of any criminal acts. Colorado does not have any laws regulating artificial insemination or making a criminal offense out of a doctor using his own sperm to impregnate patients. Some of Dr. Jones’ children hope to change that law.
Dr. Jones himself declined to comment on the case, and told a reporter that he wouldn’t be providing a DNA sample because he didn’t want “any incriminating evidence” against him.
A recent case out of Oregon, reported on by The Inquisitr , bears many similarities to the case of Dr. Jones. Dr. Bryce Cleary said that, back in 1989 when he was a medical student, he donated some sperm for what he thought would be an anonymous study. He later found out, through commercial ancestry DNA testing, that he had actually fathered at least 17 children that he was never told about.