Doctor sued over sperm

Gynecologist is accused of using his own sperm to impregnate patients

In December 2018, Maia Emmons-Boring did what many people curious about their family history do: She took a home DNA test.

But when she received her results, she learned the man she had called her father for her entire life wasn’t her biological relative.

Instead, she would soon find out, her father might be the

Grand Junction doctor who was supposed to have inseminated her mother with anonymous donor sperm.

Emmons-Boring’s allegations, detailed in a new lawsuit filed Monday, mirror those of at least nine other individuals who claim that DNA tests show they are all related to Dr. Paul Jones, an 80year-old gynecologist with an active medical license.

Emmons-Boring, along with her mother, father and sister, filed the lawsuit against Jones on

Monday in Mesa County District Court, claiming that Jones used his own sperm instead of sperm from an anonymous donor in seven artificial inseminations from 1979 to 1985, the lawsuit said.

The complaint — first reported by 9News — alleges that Jones engaged in fraud, battery, medical negligence, lack of informed consent, breach of contract and extreme and outrageous conduct over three decades in practice.

Patrick Fitz-Gerald, the attorney representing the Emmons family, said six families have come forward with claims against Jones, though the other families are not part of Monday’s lawsuit.

A woman in metro Denver, who spoke to The Denver Post on the condition of anonymity, said an ancestry test showed no paternal link to her father but indicated a relation to Jones. The revelation has caused her to lose sleep, suffer from increased anxiety and a sense of bewilderment that hasn’t let the truth completely sink in.

“Even talking to people about it is surreal,” the woman said. “I can’t believe it’s my life.”

The woman and her attorney, Paula Greisen, said they plan to

file a lawsuit in the future.

“It’s criminal, it’s immoral and it’s simply incomprehensible,” Greisen told The Denver Post.

The allegations are the latest in a wave of cases around the country where shocked families learn their doctors decades ago may have used their sperm to inseminate women. The two Colorado attorneys said their clients plan to push state legislators to tighten the laws surrounding doctor inseminations. A reproductive law expert said states will be forced to look at this issue and that more cases are inevitably going to come out.

“We are forging new territory here unfortunately,” Fitz-Gerald said in an interview.

Jones, reached by text message, said he could not comment on the case on advice of his attorney. He previously told 9News: “I don’t deny it. I don’t admit it.”

“Feeling sick”

In 1979, Cheryl and John Emmons went to the Gynecologic-Obstetrical Associates of Western Colorado in Grand Junction after they could not conceive a child.

The way it worked, Jones allegedly told the couple, is that he would obtain fresh sperm from either a medical or law student in good health, according to the complaint.

Whenever Jones conducted the insemination, nobody — including Emmons’ husband — would be allowed in the room, the lawsuit alleges.

On May 26, 1980, Emmons gave birth to a girl, whom they named Maia.

When the couple wanted a second child five years later, they again went to Jones. Emmons gave birth to another girl, Tahnee, on Aug. 7, 1985.

In the following years, Emmons and her girls would run into Jones around town. “He never disclosed that he was the biological father of the children,” the lawsuit said.

Fast forward to New Year’s Day 2019, just days after Maia Emmons-Boring received her DNA test results. She received a message through Ancestry.com from Crystal McPheeters, who had also submitted her DNA. McPheeters “had determined that the two of them were half siblings through the same donor father (Dr. Jones) along with at least five other siblings including her sister, Tahnee Scott,” the lawsuit said.

The Denver-area woman recounted a similar tale: A mother in the 1980s who found Jones through the phone book and the doctor helping her give birth to a child in 1988.

That child, now grown, was excited to build her family tree in April 2018 when she submitted her DNA tests. She found it odd, however, when her results showed no hits on her paternal side.

She eventually got messages from other people on Ancestry.com. The common link: Jones.

“When I realized he was probably my dad, I remember feeling sick,” the woman said.

She trades messages with Emmons-Boring, talking about the case, how their families are coping.

“It’s been helpful just getting it out in the open, to have other people that do get it,” the woman said. “It feels like I’m living someone else’s life, to be honest.”

There was little to suggest Jones had anything but a solid reputation. His

Colorado Medical Board records show no discipline or board actions over his decades of practice. In 2003, he settled a medical malpractice claim, though the terms are not disclosed in state records.

Revelations of doctors using their own sperm to inseminate women broke through around 2016 when DNA tests entered the mainstream, said Jody L. Madeira, an Indiana University professor specializing in reproductive law.

So what prompts doctors to engage in this behavior? It could be a combination of cash, narcissism and a belief they won’t get caught, she said.

“Genetic testing was far in the future,” Madeira said. “Also, male infertility is stigmatized and it was hard work getting donors. It was much more convenient if you have the goods yourself to use it yourself.”

Doctors also could receive money from the families intended for the anonymous donor, she said.

More states likely will discuss adding laws to the books to address this type of act, Madeira said. Only Texas, California and Indiana have laws regarding artificial insemination practices.

Greisen and her client said they will push Colorado legislators to act, although the attorney believes there is already criminal law that could apply to this case. She is encouraging others to reach out if they believe they were victims of Jones.

“It’s hard to imagine that stealing somebody’s money is a criminal activity but putting your sperm inside somebody without their consensus is not,” Greisen said.