Five more families have joined a lawsuit against a Grand Junction fertility doctor who allegedly used his sperm instead of anonymous donors to inseminate his patients throughout three decades of practice.
The amended lawsuit, filed Nov. 14 in Mesa County District Court, expands the claims against Dr. Paul B. Jones to include 12 more children and parents, who recently learned through DNA tests that Jones may be their biological relative.
The accusations against Jones, first revealed in October, come as people across the country have learned in recent years through DNA testing that their parents may not be who they think they are. The shocking cases have prompted three states to change their laws surrounding fertility fraud, and Colorado could be right behind them.
Jones, who declined comment to The Denver Post on Thursday, last month surrendered his medical license.
The October lawsuit came from four members of the Emmons family, who claimed that Jones used his sperm instead of sperm from an anonymous donor in seven artificial inseminations from 1979 to 1985. The daughter, Maia Emmons-Boring, conducted a DNA test in December 2018 and soon received messages from others on Ancestry.com. She learned she had a host of half-siblings — with Jones as the common denominator.
Now those other half-siblings and their parents — from Missouri, Wyoming, South Dakota and Oregon — have joined the suit against the doctor, seeking damages for fraud, battery, medical negligence, lack of informed consent, breach of contract and extreme and outrageous conduct.
Floyd and Verna Elliott went to Jones in 1985 because they were unable to have children. The fertility doctor promised the Grand Junction couple “fresh” sperm from a healthy, anonymous donor who had their same skin color, the lawsuit said.
Verna Elliott received three artificial insemination procedures before becoming pregnant, giving birth to Amy Elliott on Aug. 6, 1986. The family went back to Jones again three years later, delivering a second child, whom the couple named Travis.
On New Years Eve last year, Travis Elliott received a message from Crystal McPheeters. The two of them were half-siblings, she said.
“We were told it would be a donor but we never knew who it was,” Floyd Elliott told The Denver Post. “We never dreamed in a million years it would be the doctor.”
In the case of Diane McPheeters, Jones promised the family that the donor would look like her husband and that the baby would have her blood type, the lawsuit said. Jones even wrote a letter to McPheeters after she gave birth to her daughter.
“We are always happy to hear when we have been successful,” the doctor wrote, according to the suit.
Three decades later, that daughter, Crystal McPheeters, discovered from DNA testing that she had multiple half-siblings. The common denominator: Dr. Paul Jones.
Rep. Kerry Tipper, a Democrat from Lakewood, told The Denver Post in October that she has been exploring legislation that would tighten the law surrounding fertility fraud, consulting with victims and others about how the statute should be written. Only three states — Indiana, California and Texas — currently have specific fertility fraud laws.
“It should be sexual assault,” Floyd Elliott said, regarding punishment for fertility fraud. “This was a man in our trust.”