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The family of John Edwards' former mistress, Rielle Hunter, is challenging the former senator to take a DNA paternity test after his claim that he did not father Hunter's six-month old child. In the first reaction from Hunter's family, her younger sister Melissa told ABC News that Edwards should immediately follow through on his pledge to take a paternity test. "I would challenge him to do so," the sister said. "Somebody must stand up and defend my sister," she said. "I wish that those involved would refrain from bad-mouthing my sister." In his interview with ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff...

Rielle Hunter, the former presidential campaign aide who had an affair with John Edwards, said yesterday that she will not pursue DNA testing to establish the paternity of her 5-month-old daughter, despite the former senator's offer to participate in such a test. In a statement provided to The Washington Post, Hunter said through her attorney that she will not be party to such a test "now or in the future." The attorney, Robert Gordon, called Hunter a "private" person who is "not running for public office" and would not comment further. "She wishes to maintain her privacy and her daughter's...

Rielle Hunter, the former presidential campaign aide who had an affair with John Edwards, said yesterday that she will not pursue DNA testing to establish the paternity of her 5-month-old daughter, despite the former senator's offer to participate in such a test. In a statement provided to The Washington Post, Hunter said through her attorney that she would not take a genetic test "now or in the future." The attorney, Robert Gordon, called Hunter a "private" person who is "not running for public office" and would not comment further on the media frenzy engulfing her.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The ex-mistress of former presidential candidate John Edwards says she will not participate in DNA testing to establish the paternity of her daughter. Rielle Hunter's lawyer, Robert Gordon, says his client is a private individual who wishes to maintain the privacy of herself and her daughter. In a statement, Gordon says that Hunter is ruling out any kind of testing that could establish who the daughter's father is.

Dallas lawyer Fred Baron told The Dallas Morning News today that he made regular payments to the woman that former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has confessed to having an affair with. Mr. Baron, who was chairman of Mr. Edwards’ presidential campaign finance committee, said he paid money to Rielle Hunter to move from North Carolina to another location. He said she and another campaign aide, Andrew Young, who claimed paternity of Ms. Hunter’s child, were being dogged by tabloid reporters who believed she had an affair with Mr. Edwards and fathered his child. Mr. Baron would not say how...

"One morning in 2006 Kimberly, then a 38-year-old New York therapist, was getting her three children ready for their day at preschool. She was cooking breakfast for her two daughters and one son when her husband, Ken, called out from another part of the house, telling her there was a morning show segment on that she should watch. Kimberly (who did not want her last name used) turned on the television in the kitchen. As the camera panned across a group of youngsters and infants visiting the show's studio with their mothers, she moved closer to the screen -- and...

Gene Disorder Complicates Sect Custody FightApril 27, 2008 · Lawyers for the mothers of 462 children taken from a polygamist ranch in West Texas will ask a state appeals court for relief, but the process is slowed by problems in determining the children's parentage. Texas family law officials continue to investigate allegations of physical and sexual abuse. Wade Goodwyn and Liane Hansen discuss the legal proceedings.Meanwhile, many of the children in the FLDS group suffer from fumarase deficiency, a genetic disease that causes acute retardation and physical deformation. The disease was spread through decades of inbreeding, according to John...

An over-the-counter DNA paternity test now offers unknowing families peace of mind - in every state but New York. Identigene, a Salt Lake City-based genetics company, released an at-home paternity test this month, giving mothers and their offspring a speedy answer to a difficult question. Unsure mothers swab the inside of their child's mouth - and the mouth of the suspected father - then send the swabs to Salt Lake City for testing. Three to five days later, customers can log on to a secure Web site to view the results. Identigene discards the DNA after six months, but keeps...

After two decades, Sean Reid of Surrey, British Columbia, discovered that he had a son. Fred Turley of Des Plaines, Ill., learned he didn’t have a daughter. And Wendy Lieb of Lewis Center, Ohio, made certain she wasn’t going to be a grandmother quite yet. In all three situations, crucial genetic information altered the lives of the people involved. And in each case, it came not from a doctor or other medical source, but from a $29.99 kit on a drugstore shelf. Reid, Turley and Lieb are among more than 800 customers who responded to the first wave of marketing...

February 24, 2008 Mystery over Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, son of French top gun Albert Preziosi Jon Swain Seldom have the French been so glad to see the back of an official guest as they were last year when Colonel Muammar Gadaffi left Paris after a chaotic five-day visit when he pitched his bedouin tent a stone’s throw from the Elys饠Palace. Last week the Libyan leader had the last laugh when the French were reminded of the possibility that their recent guest is the son of a French war hero. According to a legend circulating in Vezzani, Corsica, Gadaffi’s father was...

A Houston businessman now living in Canada claims he's President John F. Kennedy's love child — and he wants the Kennedy clan to help him prove it. Jack Worthington, 46, who bears a striking resemblance to the assassinated leader, has appealed to the Kennedys to provide DNA from the former president or from males directly related to JFK's father, Joe Kennedy. A spokeswoman for the Kennedys didn't return calls for comment. Worthington didn't say why he came forward now but insists he isn't out for financial gain. He told a Canadian television station, "I would sign an agreement with the...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A woman in Germany who became pregnant after an online sex auction has won a court battle to force the Web site that hosted the sale to reveal the names of the winners, so she can find out who's the father. Six different men won Internet auctions to have sex with the woman in April and May last year. They were only known to her by their online names, a spokesman for a court in the southwestern city of Stuttgart said Wednesday. "The woman wanted to discover which one of the men had made her pregnant," the...

"All’s fair in love, war, and paternity cases. When child support is sought, there is scarcely any deceit that courts won’t push aside under the “best interests of the child” test."Courts have ruled that boys who were statutorily raped by older women must pay child support. Courts have ruled that when a woman has taken the semen from a condom a man used for sex with a different woman and has inserted it in herself, the man must still pay child support. Courts have ruled that when a woman has concealed her pregnancy (denying the man the right to be...

She was suffocated in robbery, police say Anne Gordon spent her last moments on the floor of her townhouse, praying to God for the man who was wrapping her face in duct tape during a robbery, according to a criminal complaint. The man, who officials say was 30-year-old Eric Henry, considered Gordon to be his grandmother. Henry was charged Tuesday with Gordon's death, the Milwaukee County district attorney's office said. Family members said Henry, of Brown Deer, is the stepson of Gordon's son Paul. Gordon, a 75-year-old pastor, died from asphyxiation because of the duct tape placed over her airways,...

In an exclusive, stunning revelation, the actual paternity of Luke Skywalker has finally been discovered. Contrary to the claims and dramatizations of the life of the legendary hero, the link to Anakin Skywalker is now discovered to have been an elaborate cover-up to hide the truth, which has now, due to genetic testing, been brought to light. The son The true father

During her divorce proceedings, Bonnie repeatedly claimed that Doug Richardson was the father of her child, but the child told Doug that Bonnie stated that Abraham Flores was his real father. The court refused Doug's request for a continuance to obtain counsel to assist in contesting paternity. 1 The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed. 2 A paternity test excluded Doug as a possible father of the child. 3 Bonnie resumed living with Abraham, but Doug was forced to pay child support into the household of the child's real father. Later, Bonnie and Abraham broke up with a formal change of...

SOMETIMES when the earth shudders it doesn’t make a sound. That’s what happened in Harrisburg, Pa., recently. On April 30, a state Superior Court panel ruled that a child can have three legal parents. The case, Jacob v. Shultz-Jacob, involved two lesbians who were the legal co-parents of two children conceived with sperm donated by a friend. The panel held that the sperm donor and both women were all liable for child support. Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, observed, “I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously,...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (CNN) -- Francisco Rodriguez owes more than $10,000 in back child support payments in a paternity case involving a 15-year-old girl who, according to DNA results and the girl's mother, is not his daughter. Francisco Rodriguez is fighting for leniency in his paternity case. "It's not right. I'm not the father, " he said. Rodriguez, who is married with two daughters and a son from his wife's previous marriage, is fighting for leniency. "It's not right. I'm not the father, " he said at a recent court hearing. He says he knew nothing about the other girl...

Here’s a Delphic riddle for our times: When is your father not your father? Answer: when he’s a sperm donor. Consider a case now before the Kansas Supreme Court. An unmarried woman in her early thirties decided that she wanted a child and asked a friend to be a sperm donor. He agreed, one thing led to another, which led to a syringe of his sperm, which led to the birth of twins. The mother says that she always intended to raise the kids alone and never wanted the friend involved in their lives. The donor says that he planned...

JEFFERSON CITY — David Salazar is what many would call a "duped dad." Repeatedly, courts have ordered him to pay child support for a 5-year-old girl, even though no one — not a judge and not the child's mother — claims he's the father. In the eyes of many, Salazar, of Buchanan County, is the victim of a law that traps men into the child support payments, even though they can prove they're not the dads. -snip- That kind of statement angers Sen. Chris Koster, who is sponsoring the Missouri bill. Koster, R-Harrisonville, said he knew children would be harmed...