You may be seated. Hello, Your Honor. Hello. This is the case of <i> Johnson v.
Milford.</i> Thank you, Jerome. Good day,
everyone. AUDIENCE: Good day. Ms. Johnson... You claim the defendant, who
has a child with your first
cousin, is your son Kearies'
biological father. Yes, Your Honor. Now you say Mr. Milford's done
nothing for Kearies, and you've dragged him to
court to prove he is the
father. Yes, Your Honor. Mr. Milford, you don't believe
Mr. Johnson is your son. Your claim is that you perform
police actions with air
defense artillery while in the army, which
exposed you to radiation,
making it impossible for you to have more
children. Am I correct? Yes, yes. So, Ms. Johnson. What has Mr. Milford done for
your son? He's done nothing for my son,
Your Honor, he didn't come to
the hospital... Nothing? Nothing at all. Explain. He never came to the hospital
when my son was born, anything I needed for my son,
Mr. Milford never provided
anything. Mr. Milford only came by to
see me. He didn't come to
see my son. Twenty-six years old? Twenty-six years old. I have two sons by
Mr. Milford. Your Honor, she never told
me she was pregnant. I did. She always told me
she had a tumor. I'm sleeping with you. How
would you think it's a tumor? She told me she had a tumor! How would you think it's
a tumor? I've been sleeping
with you the whole time. Did you know at this point
that he had a child with your
cousin as well? JOHNSON: Yes I did. At what point did you
find out you were pregnant? I actually knew I was
pregnant. I didn't tell
anybody... When? I was like five months. Five or six months. So when you found out you
were pregnant, he says you told him
it was a tumor. No, that never happened. I hadn't even been to the
doctor, so how could I say
it's a tumor, when I didn't go to the
doctor? She never told me when the
birthdays were coming. She never gave me a sonogram. What she says just don't
add up. Ms. Johnson, you get pregnant.
Do you say to him, "Dwayne, Mr. Milford, I have
something to tell you. I'm
pregnant"? Do you ever have a
conversation? Yes, I did. And how did that conversation
go? He kept asking me was I
pregnant, but he said I told
him it was a tumor. But why you asking me if I'm
pregnant if you think I have
a tumor? MILFORD: Because I figured
you were lying. JUDGE LAKE: So when he
asked you, what did you say? At first, I told him, "No." JUDGE LAKE: Okay. But then I told him,
yes I was pregnant. Why did you tell him
no at first? Because I was scared, I was
young. I was scared. I already had two children. I didn't want to
be pregnant again. I'd been actually dating
Dwayne since I was 17 with my
second son, that which is not his. I ended up getting pregnant
with Kearies later. JUDGE LAKE: Now Mr. Milford,
when she finally told you... She was seven months pregnant,
when she told me. So she said, "And I'm
seven months"? MILFORD: Yeah. At that moment did you have
instant doubt, or did you
think... It was instant doubt! I snuck to her house. And knocked on her door... So what, are you a ninja? Her sister... Her sister answered the door,
and her sister's one year
younger than her. I said, "Where's Shanon?"
She said, "She's in the
back room." I said, "Back room with who?"
"With a man." JOHNSON: Yeah, I slept with
other people. Sure, I did. I said, "Well, that man
must be the baby's daddy." And nobody ever... I went on about my business. That conversation never
happened, it never happened. He came to my house and asked
me could he see his son. JUDGE LAKE: Oh wait, back up. When you saw him, did you say, "Oh wow, that could be
my son." No. No. JOHNSON: Oh, you didn't? But
you used to sit and rock him
for hours. Yeah, yeah. No, I had my... (CONTINUED ARGUING) How did I get pregnant
if I still wasn't
sleeping with you? You came to my house. You weren't sleeping with
me then! All right Ms. Johnson,
Mr. Milford, I want to hear from Kearies. Mr. Johnson, I feel for you
sitting here, I mean, listening to this go
back and forth. You've been hearing this
all your life. This has been the confusion
you've lived in for 26 years? Yes, Your Honor. Were you told that this man
was your father? At one point I was. But then I was told he wasn't. You were? Yes. I just don't feel like I
should be going through this, 'cause I didn't
ask to be here. And I'm just... (CLAPPING) Go ahead, hon. I'm really hurt right now,
'cause... I wish I did have a daddy, because I probably wouldn't
have been in much trouble as I was,
and homes at times,
and getting taken away,
and being in group homes. Maybe if he was around, maybe
some of that stuff wouldn't
have happened to me. But, he didn't really try
to be around. Not that I've seen. Ms. Johnson, at one point
Kearies says that you told him that Mr. Milford was not his
father. Is that true? JOHNSON: Yes. Because he told me. If he couldn't be in my life,
he couldn't do anything for my
kids. I had to sleep with him to get
him to do anything. No... So, yeah, I didn't want him to be the
father, but I know he is. So I just... He wasn't around. MILFORD: Your Honor... Mr. Milford... Yes, look, my mother told me
to get this straight before
she died. So I went down to the DNA
place, she didn't show up. This was the third time. It never happened! The third time! JOHNSON: When did that happen? The third time she showed
up with the kids, and got to arguing with
the DNA people. Then ran out the door... That never happened! When I lived in the county I
was in another relationship so
I was not worried about you. Wait a minute, wait a minute.
You went to try to submit for DNA testing three times? I did submit it. Three times. Ms. Johnson, you're saying
that it never happened. It never happened. I was in another relationship. And he was not my focus,
my children were my focus. So you're saying you never
even knew about it? I never knew anything
about it. If you're telling me you can't
have kids, why are you trying
to do DNA tests if you know for a fact... Because you shouldn't
be telling children
them lies like that. Why? Why not? Your Honor... I was still sleeping with you,
that's the point. When she come, she come
around, she needed lights on,
water on, whatever. And you never had the money. I did. I used to cut them on. Yeah, you cut them on. You
never gave me any money to
do anything. That's all I could do! And I was still sleeping
with you then. So what are you saying? I would do that for anybody
who had children. I was still sleeping
with you then. Let me tell you something,
Your Honor. I've been shooting blanks
since about 1986. I had no more children. JOHNSON: You have
two children. I ain't got nothing against no
other... We have two children. No other children. You're not shooting blanks. From when I got
out the military. You believe you're sterile? Please explain to me... I was an air defense artillery
in the military, underneath
radars. And I got out... '84, '83. And I think I was sterile till
at least 1989. I was knocking down everything
but nothing was coming back. Nobody else had babies. I mean, that's ridiculous! If you'd slept with them as
much as you'd slept with me,
it might have happened. You're saying you were exposed
to radiation? Yes, I was. Which you believe caused you
to be sterile. Right. I had nothing. Nobody
else came back with nothing. And her own cousin told me
that I couldn't be the dad,
so... All right. At this time
the court would like to call
an independent witness, Ms. Chavella Jones. Jerome, would you please
escort her into the courtroom. I'm going to bring you up to
the witness stand right by
the judge. Ms. Jones, welcome. Thank
you for being here. What do you know about this
situation? How are you related to what's
going on here? I had a baby by him first. I
dated him all the way through
school. I don't understand how they
even went there. Because Ms. Johnson is... My first cousin. Is your first cousin? Correct. Do you believe he's Kearies'
father? Well... No. You don't? No. I don't. She was kind of like
a ranaway girl. When you say "she," you mean
Ms. Johnson? Correct. She had already
had two kids. And then she had him. So when you say you don't
think Mr. Milford is Kearies'
father, do you say that because you
know that she was intimate
with someone else? Yeah, probably about four or
five people. JOHNSON: I was. I was. So, Ms. Johnson, you're
admitting that during the time
you were intimate with Mr. Milford... Yes, I was trying to find
somebody to love me. Period. I was young. A lot
of things happened in my life, and I wanted
somebody to love me. And at the time, this is what
he was giving me. Yes, I did. He was the one I was
consistently sleeping with. I was sleeping with him
practically every day. No, no. Now, Mr. Johnson, you do
understand, and I know this
happened when you were younger, but it's
not just about consistency, it's about the window of
conception. Meaning, you could sleep with
him consistently for a period of time, and yet sleep with somebody
else one time. JOHNSON: Yeah. And they could still in fact
be Kearies' father. True, but I mean I slept with
him consistently. When I told him I was
pregnant, I didn't actually have no
doubt when I told him I
was pregnant. He was happy, and I said then,
"This is not gonna work. "You have a baby by
my cousin. "We shouldn't even be sleeping
together." But he always sugar coated
everything and made it seem
like it was okay. And see, I thought you...
It's your fault. It really is. Because you're eight years
older than her,
she was a child. You had no business,
no business at all. (CLAPPING) MILFORD: All you wanted
was a sugar daddy. JOHNSON: I want you to say it. I wouldn't sleep with you
so you wouldn't do nothing
for the kid. You said it point blank! Mr. Milford and Ms. Johnson, this could go on forever. I keep giving you all
a little leeway to see if maybe we could get
somewhere. I still don't understand how
one person can go down for a
DNA test three times, I don't understand why you
don't just call and say, "Hey, they're calling me back
in again. "You wanna all go together so
we can get this resolved?" It never happened. It's just a conversation. It never happened. We never would have talked.
All we did was have sex most
of the time. That's why. Mr. Milford, I'd like to hear
from your witness. Please stand, ma'am. State your name for the court. Labarbara Jones. Ms. Jones, you are... I'm the daughter of Chevella
Jones and Dwayne Milford. Do you believe Mr. Johnson
is your brother? I don't know if he's my
brother or not, I know he's
my cousin and I love him. I know this is my father. I know that this whole mess
has made us separate. We used to play together,
hang out together, I probably was 10 or 11,
maybe like around that age, you know, we all played
together. We really had a close bond at
that time as cousins. I think I told my mom I didn't
like having to call him
brother. It kept being forced upon me. And we really didn't know
about sex back then. How are you telling us about
brothers, sisters, cousins. You know, we don't have
any idea... (CLAPPING) ...what to do with that. It's even awkward now as an
adult when I introduce, when I call him my cousin,
and he calls me his sis, so when I go over there,
I never met his girlfriend
before, you know, so he's introducing me. He
introduced me as his sister. I'm standing there,
like I don't know what to say. Like, I'm not going to
correct him. But at the same time it feels
awkward to me because to me
he's my cousin... JUDGE LAKE: And Mr. Johnson, how does this make you feel? I
see you standing there... You're trying to acknowledge
Ms. Jones because that's what
you've been told, that this is your sister,
and yet she says you're
her cousin. Yes. It's awkward, but... I was told she was my sister,
so I call her my sister. She heard about all of it, but
she started the mess anyway
because... I started it because your
father said something
to me. That's ridiculous.
She should have waited. (TALKING OVER EACH OTHER) JOHNSON: I was doing the wrong
thing by separating them, 'cause I didn't know what
to say. JONES: We were cousins,
we were never separated. No, he said I wasn't
acknowledging who you actually
were together. And I said, "I don't know
how to go about this. Just
tell him." And this is him telling
me this. Did you ever have that
conversation, Mr. Milford? Did you ever have
that conversation? Did you ever have that
conversation? MILFORD: Never. Didn't know where she lived,
I had to find off of somebody
else. But you found a way to sleep
with me, you figured that one
out. It is obvious to me that you
slept with this young girl, for a very long time. It's also obvious to me, that she probably went to you
because after dating her
cousin, someone she looked up to, then you start looking over
at her, she's a young girl,
impressionable, ended up in
the bed with you, and now every conversation
she says you had with her you stand in court,
Mr. Milford, and you say
it never happened. I was working two jobs,
I never had time
for all this sex. I don't know where all this
sex came from. I never had that much sex.
I would have had 15 children. But no, you couldn't have done
that because you were sterile. JONES: We had two. MILFORD: Right! That's what
I'm saying. I mean it just don't make
sense. JUDGE LAKE: No, that's exactly
what I'm saying. None of this
makes sense. It baffles me how we
could be standing here. Arguing back and forth between
the two of you as to what happened and what
didn't happen, and what's fictional and
what's not, when this young man over here
is not a piece of fiction. (CLAPPING) He's a person! The story is exhausting! And he's had to live through
this for 26 years? Yeah, and then you
acknowledge him one minute
and the next minute you don't. But Ms. Johnson, you got to
own up to the fact that you tell him that he's
his dad one minute, and then when you... JOHNSON: I have! I have. I told my son that. I think, at this point, the past is the past. What has been done has been
done, we cannot change it. What we can change, today,
is the confusion that you've
had to live with, your entire life. (CLAPPING) These results were prepared
by DNA Diagnostics and
they read as follows. I know this is very emotional,
if anyone would like to sit
down, you're more than welcome. In the case of<i>
Johnson v. Milford,</i> when it comes to 26-year-old
Kearies Johnson, it has been determined
by this court, Mr. Milford... You... ...are not his father. JOHNSON: Wow... I'm sorry, Kearies. I'm sorry. JOHNSON: I'm sorry, son. I'm so sorry, Kearies. Mom, I have to ask you... Do you have any idea? Yes. You do? Yes. Do you know how to find him? Yes. He's the one that stepped
up to be his father. When Dwayne didn't. I respectfully say to you
today, get the tests done
and let him
know for sure. So he has that opportunity
in his lifetime to look at a
man and say, "Hey, Dad." And know that to be true. Okay. Yes. All right? Family, we have counseling, we
have resources for you, I want you to take advantage
of it. This has been very
difficult. But Ms. Jones, you mind going
to give Ms. Johnson a hug? I think she's been missing
her big cousin. (CLAPPING) JUDGE LAKE: It's been...
It's been rough. I think she's been really
missing your friendship. (SOBBING) I love you. I love you, too. It's okay. It's okay. Court is adjourned.
