You may be
seated. Hello, Your Honor.
This is the case
of<i> Phillips v. Gibbes.</i> Thank you. Good day, ladies
and gentlemen. Today we have the case of<i>
Phillips v. Gibbes.</i> Miss Phillips, you are suing
your ex-boyfriend for $1000 in child-care expenses
you claim he has ignored since denying that he is the
father of your two-month-old
daughter, Jordyn, whom he refuses
to meet. Today, you have petitioned the
court for a paternity test,
to prove he is the father, and are looking to
recover your $1000
child-care expenses. Mr. Gibbes, you claim that
Miss Phillips did not
live up to your standards, and has a long history
of sexual promiscuity. You believe you are not
the father of her baby, and therefore say
you owe her nothing. Now, Miss Phillips,
tell me about your relationship
with the defendant. Well, Your Honor,
I thought this was gonna
be the best situation. I thought that he
was actually the one
for me, you know? And I think it started
for me when he went
to this convention a spiritual convention, and he
came home that night, he was
just, like, "You gotta go." Okay, wait.
I just must stop you. You're in a relationship. Yes. "He's the one for me." That's how I felt. Then he goes to a
spiritual convention, Yes. and comes home and
tells you to get out. Yeah, he told me he had to go
because he was working
on himself or whatever, so I was, like,
"Well, it's late." You know, "Can I just
wait till the morning, "just go to my
grandmother's house?"
You know, it was late. It's the middle
of the night? Yes, it was, like,
12:00, 1:00,
2:00 maybe. So he takes me
to a hotel. I'm in the car crying,
boo-hoo-ing, I'm, like,
"Why?" You know, "Why?" He's like, he can't do this
no more. He gotta do right.
So I was, like, "Okay." Okay, Mr. Gibbes,
I have to ask you.
Is this true? Did you go home
after the spiritual
convention and put Miss Phillips
out and take her
to a hotel? A lot of stuff led
up to this event. JUDGE LAKE: Okay. Fill me in. Okay, First of all, the first thing
that happened
was we went to a Christmas party
that her friend
was throwing. She's getting approached
by a guy, I guess they know
as part of the family. He kinda just ignores
that I'm even there. I'm asking her, I said,
"Hey, are you going
with me, or not?" "No. Uh-uh." JUDGE LAKE: And she's
shaking her head "yes." Yeah, so she wanted to
stay here with the guy that I just got into
an altercation with. Then the next event
we get to... Let me stop at that event,
because I need to understand
from Miss Phillips now, why is it, if you came
to the party with him,
and you guys were together, when there was an altercation,
why didn't you leave
with him? The only reason why I
didn't leave with him was
because the dude was... I've been around that family
for years, and I know
how they work. So what I was doing,
I was just trying to
keep it down, because they was
getting ready to
go to the house. So out of protection
for him you were just
trying to defuse it, Exactly. Exactly. and say, "I'm
just gonna stay." GIBBES: After that,
it follows up I go to Miami
with a friend of mine's. Two days later I get a
call from a mutual friend that says she was
involved in an event... PHILLIPS: I called you
and told you. I called you. My mutual friend
told me first. They left and went
to a party where... I know what type
of girl she is. She's a very promiscuous
girl, put it like that,
herself. Yes. So when she gets there,
she's already in the car. She tells me Mahogany didn't
even want to get into the car,
because she seen her... I got right in the car and
I seen her, I even said
"Hey!" to her, she didn't say, "Hey!"
to me, and that situation,
yes I was at that... Originally she told me
that was her brother's,
her real, fleshly brother's. Because I asked her
several times... Yes, I told him all this.
This is what I told him. Mr. Gibbes, you say
that Miss Phillips
admitted to cheating. Yes, I did. Yeah, she told me that, but when I first got
back, she told me
that she didn't. "Nothing happened. I was
with my brothers." That story stayed for about a
month and a half until finally
she broke out and said, "Yeah, I did cheat, but
it wasn't with who I
was with that night." So the trust is going
out the window, but
you're still with her? I'm still with her. Then
another situation where I was talking to a friend of mine,
it was outside during a party, and he was telling me,
"Yeah, I was with
this one girl, man. "We was in the back
seat, we doin' it,
and all of a sudden, "a guy in a black
car pulls up." I said, "A black
car pulls up?" He's like, "Yeah, she told me
to go ahead and let's get out, "because, 'He's crazy,
that's my boyfriend,
he's crazy.'" I said, "Did the black car
look like this one?" And he was like, "Yeah." Yeah, that was a
friend of mine, and we was talking
in front of my house
when he came. But, didn't this person
tell you that she did
have sex with him? Yes. We weren't even
together. I did have sex with
him, though, but we
weren't together then. And I felt bad about it.
I told him I felt bad,
I shouldn't have did it, I didn't even feel good
about it at all. But, when I go through
his stuff, the bag that
he took to Miami, I see condoms,
and they're open,
and one's missing. Had the relationship
ever been positive
for you? Yeah, it's been good
a lot of times. Like there's been times
that we actually did
things together, I mean we acted
like, a family. He had his two girls,
I had my boy, we was doing things
you're supposed to
do in a relationship. We just had a real
relationship, it's just when he got in that mind frame
where he was assuming that
something happened, it turned sour, which I
understand, because if
you cheat once, then he's gonna think
that you're always
cheating. But then that's why
I kept myself around him, There was times... so he wouldn't think
that something was wrong. And that's what I did.
I even had problems
with my peoples. My grandmother was getting mad
because I was always
running over to him. And then when he does it,
it was, like, out of
character and worthless. You know, I'm a whore,
the biggest whore,
a slut, I'm everything, but yet I'm here doing
everything I need to do
that you want me to do. But at the same time,
I'm calling,
"Where you at?" Oh, she'll come up with
this line or some story where she had been
at a friend's house. But when I get over there,
we could be sitting there
for five, ten minutes, a phone call will pop up,
"Hey, is Mahogany there?" And that's true. In your statement to the
court, you also talked
about text messages. I had went to jail for
about two months, and when I got back out,
the first thing I'm gonna do
is go through your phone. Multiple dude are in there,
making flagrant text messages. It's not multiple, it's two! "Oh, I'm horny for you,
daddy," and all this
other kind of stuff. And that's a lie,
it wasn't sexual. Multiple text messages, from
multiple different guys, five
different numbers at least. I even called a couple
of them back, and
I'm like, "Hey..." Okay, but yet, meanwhile
he's got other girls coming
to see him in jail. JUDGE LAKE: So this far
in this story, I'm hearing
that, Mr. Gibbes, you were a good man
in this relationship. I'm not gonna sit here and say
that I was just being 100%
in the right, because... Oh, okay. Because we was doing
tit for tat, a lot of it. Miss Phillips, you
said you thought he
was the one for you. He is. I did. You really did. And did you come to
find out that you were
the only one for him? No. I know it's not.
I knew that wasn't
the case. Did he have
other women? When I first met him
and we was getting
into our relationship, he told me that been
married before. My wife at the time
was living in Mississippi. We had been legally
separated for almost
two years at that point. Well, I have a saying.
"A man is married
until he is divorced." True. True. Yeah. Still married. And that's when I
should have known that the relationship
would not progress. At some point, you found out. Yes. Two weeks later, but you
continued. Four years now? And I still continued,
yes I did, because by the end, I felt like
I was stuck. I was young, and
I felt like I was stuck. It's true, he ain't with her,
so I'm gonna stay with him.
That's how I felt. What I'm gathering is
that this relationship
was messy. Yes ma'am. Despite this messiness,
you end up pregnant. Yes. The question up is,
"Is it mine?" and I'm like, "Okay, you feel like
it's not yours, how? "We've had unprotected sex
since we've been talking." But here's the reason
why I felt like that. The situation was when
I had just moved into
a new apartment, we had just gotten into a
blow-up because her friend
had had a birthday party, and they go out on a night
on the town, I go by
her house, she's not there. I'm knocking on the window,
she's not there. And there's
been multiple times when I go by there, she says
she's there, she's gone. She done left with her
kid or whatever, gone. It's your kid, in me. Two weeks after I moved
into my apartment, she
was nowhere to be found. When she gets to
finding out that
she's pregnant, and then she's telling me
all these mixed dates, she goes to the doctor,
she says, "Oh, I'm 12 weeks,"
"Oh, I'm 16 weeks" and these are within
two or three days. So when I counted
back, I'm like... First of all, it was, like,
in the beginning of June
when I went out. That's around
the time when... She was messing. When she was messing. Which makes you doubt her. So it made me doubt
her, yeah, obviously. Okay, but then that was
the night I called up
my friend. I did. I sure did call my friend,
because my friend would tell
me that I am worth something, that I'm not worthless,
so that's what I did. So this is
a male friend? Yes it is. And you had him tell you
you were worth something. Yeah, and I kept putting him
off, I kept putting him off,
because this is what I want. This is what I want.
This is what I want. No. She's seeing this male friend
that she's talking about. You slept with this friend? That night, yeah, because
he's in the military, so... See? There you go. You had sex with the man.
You're saying you did. Definitely.
Yes, I did. So do you understand
from Mr. Gibbes' perspective
why there's doubt? Who gets pregnant
by a man that you claim
you're pregnant by, you go and take off
800 miles away.
You go to Tampa. You're down there.
You done left me
up here high and dry. You're not worried about me. I'm calling, I'm trying
to maintain a long-distance
relationship, but how much can I do this
when I'm not at
doctor's appointments, I'm not there during
the pregnancy of
this child, I'm not in the labor
of this child, I'm not there.
I'm absent. But even still, when she
came back for her birthday,
I took her out. She came back to visit
for another reason. She ain't coming down to
visit for me, she came down
to visit for another reason. JUDGE LAKE: So, she left. She left. During that time
you kept in contact, but you didn't make
the effort to go down
to see her. No, because at the time,
I'm running my own
business, and I worked. I did all the traveling. JUDGE LAKE: Pregnant? Yeah, I was pregnant. She did the traveling
via her mother
or family. But I was doing
the traveling. Okay, so, based upon this,
Mr. Gibbes, you're convinced
you're not the father. I just, I have good reasonable
doubt that I'm not the father. Okay, now I'd like
to bring up your
witness, please. Please state your
name, ma'am. Raven Gibbes. And you are Mr. Gibbes'
sister, am I correct? Yes, that is correct. Tell me what you
have to add
to this situation that can help the court
understand what's going on. Okay, well first of all,
there's just too much between the both of them,
back and forth. This has been
going on for years, and when my brother
first told me that
she was pregnant, and that she did have a child,
I thought it was strange that
she left and went to Tampa, because I felt like, "Okay,
well, if it is his baby,
you're not just "keeping it away from him, "but you're keeping it
away from the rest
of his family, too." Because if it is his daughter,
then she's our family, too. So I thought it was
kinda strange that she
would just go to Tampa, while she was pregnant.
I don't mean, like, towards
the end or the beginning, I mean, like,
right in the middle. You know what I'm saying?
We didn't know anything about
when she was due, or anything, and then
all she would so
was send pictures to him, and then just
talk about child support,
is what he was telling me. So I'm like, "Well, how can
you do all that and you don't
even have a paternity test," because they both were
seeing other people. She was seeing other
people, and he was
seeing other people, and he told me around the time
that the baby was conceived, or when she found out
she was pregnant, it didn't add up, because
she was seeing other people and they weren't really
together like that. If you wanted him to be
a part of the pregnancy, why leave in the first place
while you're pregnant?
I want to understand that. I couldn't do it no more,
Your Honor. All the drama
he was taking me through. I was pregnant. It was stressing you out? Yes, I wasn't trying to be
stressed out. I was not trying
to be stressed out by him, and he knows what, because
he first came up denying it, and then we'd get into
argument after argument about the situation.
I had to go
get me some rest. I was coming back. But felt like I needed
to go for this pregnancy
to get me some rest. Why do you think she left? I'm still trying to
figure that one out, but when she left, she didn't
give no real definitive
reason why she's leaving. She's saying, "Oh, I can't
take it no more," but look at what we've been
going through for the past
four, three years of chaos. And I wasn't
pregnant then,
either. So you're gonna get pregnant,
but now you take off right when things are getting
critical, right when things
are getting serious. And did your brother tell you
that Miss Phillips had left
to go to Florida? RAVEN: Mm-hmm. And what did you think? I thought it was strange,
because, I mean, if I was
pregnant by someone, and I wanted that person
to step up and... Even if I'm having problems
with that person, I'm gonna
think about my child. I'm gonna think about the fact
that that's the father, so I'm gonna try to, like,
at least stay around and see
where he could step in. We don't have to be together,
we don't have to talk, I still can get my rest
and my breaks from arguments. I thought it was strange
because I feel,
just being a woman, if I had a child
and I was in that situation, I wouldn't just leave
while I'm pregnant, 'cause that's just
not natural, to me. Well, the baby
comes first to me, and my baby's health
is important to me. If I'm stressed out,
I mean, anything can happen
when you're pregnant. If you've got a child, you
know that when you're pregnant
you can't be stressed. But even after the baby
was here and she would
come to Pensacola, she still was like
on the DL about it. So, it still does not add up. Did I write you? Yeah, you wrote me
several times. We wrote
back and forth. We wrote back and
forth all the time, but even after the baby
was born, she goes and says, She's on Facebook
with other friends, telling them that, okay,
the baby's not mine. She's telling her friends
that it's not mine. I never said that.
You can't find
not one message. Okay. And in your statement to
the court, you also said that
some friends said that she told them that
the baby wasn't... That's what I'm saying.
She told her friends
that it wasn't mine. Oh my God, that is
the biggest lie
I ever heard today. Nobody will ever believe
that that baby ain't his,
because they said, how is it that that
he's even denying her, every time you see him
with me or me, him. They didn't even know
that we had broken up. I think the only thing
at this point that
we have established is that this relationship
wa doomed from the start. RAVEN: Thank you. Yes. (APPLAUSE) I feel that that's true. JUDGE LAKE: Thank you,
Miss Gibbes, for
your testimony. You may have a seat. I can't believe it,
but I think I might
be speechless. I... I'm looking for
the light, here. There isn't any. When did either of you
treat this relationship
as something of value, or something to respect,
or be trustful? You were married,
you were cheating, and you were
tit-for-tat, and you break up,
then you get back together, and then potentially
create a child. And still arguing about it. And the only thing this court
cares about is that child. I think it's time for us
to reveal the results because I think we need
to know. Are you ready? Yes. Absolutely. Jerome, if I may. There you are. Oh! Yeah, that's Jordyn. Now, Mr. Gibbes,
you have never, ever
met the baby, right? No, ma'am. These results, as prepared
by DNA Diagnostics, reads... When it comes to
two-month-old baby Jordyn, Mr. Gibbes, this court
has determined that you are her father. There it is. How do you feel? I'm completely fine with that.
It never was a point where
I felt like I didn't want... Hold it. Hold it! Well, I mean, we got
determination and I can
move on and be her father. Like I will be that nasty,
to not know who
my baby daddy is. Oh, I can't deal.
I can't. Express to the court
what you feel. That's embarrassing. That's embarrassing, when your
friends come by, "Oh yeah,
I talked to Sherard, "and he's like,
'That ain't my baby. I gotta
see that in black and white.'" Like, seriously. I never said it wasn't
my baby. I never said
it wasn't my baby. But I did say, "Look, I just
need to see verification."
And I got it. For this reason, because
it's been determined that Mr. Gibbes, you are
baby Jordyn's father, I am going to award plaintiff
the $1000 in back
child care fees, because it is your
responsibility to help with the fees and the costs
associated with the
birth and care of baby Jordyn up until
this time, and going forward. Absolutely. Now, auntie, I don't know if you're
borderline sad or
disappointed, but then you you got the cutest little
niece in the world, so I don't
know how you could be sad. RAVEN: I mean, I'm glad
that she's an addition
to the family. As far as her being
another extension,
then I'm happy for that. Beautiful, beautiful.
Now, Mr. Gibbes,
the best question I have to ask you
for today is, are you ready to meet
your beautiful baby girl
in my chambers? Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I will meet you there.
Court is adjourned. Ready to bring in
baby Jordyn. And all dressed
up for Daddy. Hold your baby. JUDGE LAKE: Mm-hmm. I want you guys to remember
that the past can only
be the past if you let it stay there. And like I said, there's
nothing in the world more
important than your children. And you can
do it for them.
