I am not the OOP, this is a repost community.
OOP is: u/kaitkaitlynlyn
Originally posted to: r/legaladvice
Trigger Warning
stealthing, sexual assault, sex worker, loss of a child, manipulation, coercion, lies and deceit
Editors Note: This is a LONG one, in a news article and only parts 1 and 2 of 5 are out. You may want to save this for when all 5 parts are released.
Here is a link to part 1 if you'd prefer to read it in it's original format with all the images intact. There are several screenshots of text messages that may be interesting to most people. I would recommend ad block though. Below is the original Reddit post that got us to this news article.
2023
So I was dating this man for around 2 years when we decided to have a baby. We tracked my ovulation schedule and finally got pregnant. He ghosted me 2 months before my due date and I ended up having my child a month early. I have not heard from him since my child was born 10 months ago, with the exception of a text stating that he did not believe the child was his.
Fast forward and I came into contact with other women that he has done this to through a Facebook group. My child has 4 known siblings and there are 3 open child support cases against this man. One of the mothers received the dna results for her child and it said that he was not the father. She knew that he was the father so she ordered an Ancestry DNA kit and ran the kit on her child. The test results came back and connected her child with this man’s immediate family. She took that evidence to her state appointed attorney and her attorney requested that the test be retaken through their facility. The paternal father opposed and fought it in court.
He was not there because he was “in Greece for work” so he had his attorney represent him to argue why he shouldn’t have to take another DNA test. The other mother’s attorney stated that he had taken the test at a labcorp 150 miles from his home before he was even ordered to take it and consistently requested that the state accept that sample in place of him going through DDC. Her attorney finally authorized it because it was through a reputable company. However, the suspicions surrounding the case should call for a new court ordered DNA test through DDC.
His attorney argued that the paternal father shouldn’t have to take another test and that he took the test at that specific location due to being there for work. He then proceeded to defend the paternal father by saying that these are highly offensive allegations but that the paternal party was willing to take another test through ddc and he actually had went and paid for one through DDC “with his own money.” He continued to say that all the mother had to do was to bring her child to the facility to get tested. He then showed the judge a copy of where he had scheduled a test.
The other mother’s attorney objected and stated that her client has severe anxiety about that and that her client would pay for the new test to be done at one of the state designated facilities. The judge agreed and now he has to retake a new dna test through DDC but now the mother is paying for it.
His attorney panicked and ran up to the judge frantically waving the paper saying that he had already paid for the test and that his name would already be in the system and the judge did not care and said that her ruling was final.
After leaving the court room, his attorney passed the other mother and I in the hallway and the other mother stated “You should know more about your client.” And he responded by yelling “I KNOW MY CLIENT.” He then proceeded to walk aggressively down the hall, punching the air and saying “I know that’s not his baby!!!” He was making an absolute ass out of himself to the extent to where people were laughing at him. I feel like he knows the truth and that’s why his attorney reacted that way.
The test has not yet been scheduled but I worry that he’s going to bribe someone on this one as well being as he has ALOT of money. We have stacks of evidence against him and all of our children look very veryyyyyyy similar. What should I do? He has not yet been served for my child’s case but I’m concerned that he will do the same thing to me. What are the consequences of falsifying a dna test? Will I even be able to receive child support if this man is incarcerated?
It’s all tooooooo much
Oct 12, 2026
Just an update on a previous post where I was seeking legal advice regarding my son’s biological father submitting a falsified dna test to the court. The Dallas News is running a series about it that began releasing this morning. I feel anxious but validated.
Location: Dallas, Texas
News Article Here
Editor's Note I believe there's a post in between that I'm missing where OP shows what happened to her.
Part 1
She was 22 and still mourning a pair of losses: her 3-month-old son, to sudden infant death syndrome, and her partner, to murder. Spiraling, she transitioned from exotic dancing to working as an escort.
When she said a man named Gary contacted her through one of her escort ads, she viewed it as an opportunity. They made arrangements to meet at his house in Mandeville, a suburb of New Orleans situated on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
Nadia wasn’t intending to have sex with Gary that night. They had negotiated a price of $500, but they never agreed to anything specific. Still, she stowed a condom in her bra.
When Nadia arrived, Gary offered her a drink. She happily accepted.
Gary — who would later move to Dallas and split time between there and New Orleans — talked about his travels and work. Nadia shared what had happened with her son and partner.
As the night progressed and Nadia grew more intoxicated, she decided it would be beneficial to take Gary on as a client. He seemed cool, like he had his life together. And he wasn’t bad looking, either. Nadia said Gary told her he couldn’t use the condom because he was allergic to latex.
During sex, Nadia said Gary asked three times if he could ejaculate inside of her. Each time, she said no. The third time, she said, he did it anyway. As Nadia drove home to New Orleans, she said she received a text. It was from Gary.
“We’re about to go half on a baby.”
The saga of Gary Alton Matthews Jr.
This is much more than the story of one woman’s bad sexual encounter. What Gary had done to her, he had done before, Nadia would learn, and he would do it again. There were other women with stories similar to hers — not only in Louisiana, but also in North Texas.
Over the next six years, she would discover at least six other women who felt betrayed by him, leading to contentious legal disputes — some of which are still playing out in courtrooms from Dallas to Phoenix to Covington, La.
The saga of Gary Alton Matthews Jr., full of twists and turns, is not just a tale of salacious deceit. This is a story about a pattern of behavior that left a trail of financial hardship, abandoned children and broken homes in its wake. This is a story about a group of women who banded together, after enduring shame and shock, to advocate for themselves and their children.
It is a story about the limits of the family court system, which allowed one well-resourced man to evade accountability through the employ of private DNA tests, high-priced attorneys, the concealment of assets and what government attorneys in Texas and Louisiana contend is perjury and fraud. It’s about wasted taxpayer dollars, missed opportunities and unserved justice.
The legal cases against Gary are outliers but also emblematic of broader problems in the family court system. Relatively few cases involve years of contentious litigation or allegations of fraud, as Gary’s did, or result in hundreds of thousands of dollars being owed. Still, his cases illustrate challenges confronted by so many other Texas mothers who pursue and are owed child support in a state that collects more of it than any other, through a court system that is slow to react and favors those who can afford legal representation.
Through his attorney, Gary declined to speak with The Dallas Morning News. His version of events is largely represented through his testimony contained in nearly 4,900 pages of court records, as well as messages and emails shared with The News by nine of his former partners.
‘Lost dog’
Nadia didn’t want to have a baby with a man she had just met. A man who, she said, after that first text, had asked if she was ovulating. Her intuition told her that something about the situation was off. As a precaution, Nadia took Plan B.
What she didn’t know was that she was, in fact, already ovulating. Plan B temporarily delays ovulation but isn’t effective when an egg has already been released. Two weeks later, a faint line appeared on a home pregnancy test. When Nadia shared the news with Gary, he asked her what she wanted to do. She said she wanted to end the pregnancy.
Nadia said he agreed to send her money for an abortion, but he preferred that she keep the baby. She said he told her he really wanted to be a father. They could develop a relationship. He would be there for the baby. Nadia thought about the baby boy she had lost, who never had the chance to live. Maybe, she thought, having this baby could become a catalyst to better her life.
Around Father’s Day, Nadia agreed to go to dinner with Gary. Already, she said, he acted as if they were in a relationship. That night, they slept together again. When Nadia woke the next morning, she said Gary wasn’t in the bedroom. As she went to put her clothes back on, she said she saw something on the floor next to the bed. It was a pair of women’s underwear, size small. They weren’t hers.
Without speaking to Gary, she left.
When he texted, asking where she went, Nadia told him to check the side of his bed. She said Gary responded with a long text. He was an upstanding man, he said. The underwear, he said, belonged to a cousin who would house sit while he was out of town.
As the pregnancy progressed, Nadia struggled to reach Gary. When he finally responded, she said, he told her he was in Africa and could file for child support after the baby was born. Nadia wasn’t buying that story. She drove by his house in Mandeville. She could see he was home.
Nadia assumed he would be. She had already printed out a stack of homemade flyers. They included a picture of Gary under the title “LOST DOG.”
The flyer read, in part: “Spends a lot of time prowling the internet for escorts. Has a fetish for intentionally getting women pregnant. Acts like he wants to be involved and then goes non responsive. Lies constantly.” Nadia taped one to Gary’s door. She put others on a stop sign and in the neighbors’ mailboxes.
A private paternity test
Nadia gave birth to a baby girl in January 2021 in New Orleans. She filed for child support from her hospital bed.
Over the next year, the case proceeded slowly. Nadia moved on with her life, and so did Gary. A few months after the baby’s birth, he purchased a townhome in Dallas and began splitting his time between Texas and Louisiana. A few months after that, Nadia moved with the baby to Florida.
He did not respond to the court’s summons to establish his paternity and child support obligations. Nadia began contacting Gary’s family members, one of whom suggested a DNA test. That would prove to be anything but simple.
Nadia and Gary exchanged a series of heated messages. The paternity case couldn’t proceed, Nadia told him, until he responded to the court. By August 2022, Gary still had not responded to the court. A judge entered a default judgment legally recognizing Gary as the father.
Two months later, Gary visited a Labcorp location — but not in New Orleans or Dallas, where he spent the majority of his time. He flew to Houston, where a collector at a location on North Gessner Road swabbed the inside of his cheek. She also took Gary’s thumbprint, reviewed his driver’s license and passport and took his photo. Gary listed his home address as the Dallas townhome.
The following day, Gary’s attorney, Donald Rose, contacted the Department of Children & Family Services, which enforced child support for the state of Louisiana. Because of a procedural error, the default judgment was vacated, and Gary would now be allowed to contest his paternity. Rose requested that the department test the DNA sample Gary had just provided in Houston.
The request was received by Maria Treffinger, a longtime attorney with DCFS who litigated child support cases. Treffinger would ultimately become intricately involved in Gary’s legal battles with the mothers of his children.
Treffinger emailed Rose back to tell him the department preferred all testing be completed through DNA Diagnostics Center, commonly known as DDC, the laboratory exclusively contracted to perform testing for the state. The lab ensured neutral collection of samples and a strict chain of custody for legally admissible test results.
That would not be convenient for his client, Rose replied; Gary now lived in Texas and would be working in Toronto for several months.
After exchanging a series of calls and emails with Rose, Treffinger relented, reluctantly. The state would use the Labcorp sample collected in Houston.
Three samples from two different labs — Nadia and her daughter’s from DDC, and Gary’s from Labcorp — were merged. In March 2023, more than two years after Nadia’s daughter was born, the paternity results were in. There was a 0% chance, they showed, that Gary was the father of Nadia’s child.
Turning to Ancestry
On Instagram, Gary sent Nadia a screenshot of the paternity test. The series of accompanying messages was gleeful, and gloating.
“DNA proves you’re delusional,” he wrote, with a crying laughing emoji. “Now it’s my turn to get compensated on your defamation.”
“Maybe you should actually go find your baby daddy instead of stalking me. A restraining and protective order will be sent your way soon.”
“Move on with your life. Remove any content or stupid s--- you put out about me and go live your life. If you continue to harass or defame me, I’m going to tie you up in court and take hundreds of thousands from you.”
Nadia was stunned.
“SO HOWD YA MANAGE THAT ONE GARY?” she messaged back, adding that she planned to dispute the results. “There is absolutely NO WAY she’s not your child.”
“What’d you do? Pay someone off? Slip someone else’s dna into a tube in your mouth or sum?”
Again and again, Gary sent Nadia the paternity test results.
At one point, Nadia recalls Gary saying something that puzzled her: No matter what she thought or did, a DNA test would never identify him as the father.
The phrasing confused Nadia. What on earth, she wondered, did that mean?
Nadia called Treffinger. She knew it sounded crazy — and she didn’t know how Gary had managed it — but it was impossible for anyone else to be the father of her child. Please, Nadia asked, couldn’t the state conduct another test? Treffinger respectfully listened to Nadia’s concerns, but Nadia got the impression that taking her call was a courtesy. After all, Treffinger told her, Gary had taken the test. The results spoke for themselves.
Nadia refused to accept them. She ordered a DNA test from Ancestry, the genealogy website. Within days, it was on her doorstep. Obtaining a DNA sample from her 2-year-old was no easy task. Somehow, she managed to get her daughter’s saliva into the test tube.
A few weeks later, Nadia logged onto her account to check the results. The first thing she noticed: Gary’s half-sister shared 11% of her DNA with her daughter. There was more: Relatives with Gary’s last name and his mother’s maiden name also showed up as familial matches.
Nadia sent screenshots of the results to Gary. He responded with a crying-laughing emoji.
“I wasn’t going to sue you for defamation but I will now,” he wrote back. “I’m not kin to any of those people.”
Nadia also emailed the screenshots to Treffinger, who called her.
The testing process, Treffinger acknowledged, had been highly unusual. It had been handled outside of the court’s normal procedures due to what she called pressure from Gary’s attorney. She would request another test. Treffinger filed a motion with the court in June 2023. The paternity results were not the only thing that caused Nadia to doubt Gary’s truthfulness. There was much more that he was hiding.
‘You won’t get a penny’
The same year Nadia met Gary, a single mother in New Orleans connected with him online. After a few months of exchanging messages, they met in person and began seeing each other.
For months, the woman — who asked The News not to identify her due to fear of retaliation and to protect the identity of her child — said she believed she had developed a close friendship with Gary. The News verified her account through a review of court records and other public records, text messages and emails and other interviews. He bought the woman’s child an expensive gift and brought her on an international trip.
Early on, the woman, who was in her 30s, said Gary told her he wanted to go “half on a baby” with her, a reference to an R. Kelly lyric. She said they both were open to having children. The summer of 2021 — around the same time Nadia’s child support case was opened — the woman found out she was pregnant. She told Gary. Suddenly, she said, he disappeared. She said he stopped talking to her on all platforms.
Embarrassed, she hid the pregnancy from her family for seven months. All that time, she still hadn’t heard from Gary. Before she gave birth, she sent out baby shower invitations to his parents. They did not respond or attend. The woman gave birth in New Orleans in May 2022. It was a girl. The new mother sent out a birth announcement.
A few months later, still having not heard from Gary, she texted him, asking him to send her $700 a month to support their daughter until she was in pre-kindergarten. When Gary didn’t respond, she told him she intended to file for child support. This time, he responded. He told her he had moved to Toronto and suggested the child was not his. He was also angry she had sent the baby shower invitations and birth announcement to his parents.
“I promise you if you go to the courts you won’t get a penny from me,” he wrote to her. “Don’t threaten me I’m not the one.”
“When you make a baby you have to be at least financially responsible for them,” the mother replied. “Yea it’s your choice to pretend they don’t exist but legally it doesn’t matter how many lawyers or accountants you have it is your obligation to support. That’s how it works I don’t make the rules.”
Within a week, Gary texted he was contacting the police and would be suing her for defamation. He also threatened to seek full custody of their daughter.
“You got me pregnant knowing I was a low income single mother just to do this?” the woman wrote back to Gary. “To destroy me? But why? I don’t understand you at all.”
“Continue messaging me,” he replied, “and I’ll make sure you don’t ever work again when I expose what you did to me!”
“Why would (you) want custody over our child,” the mother asked, “when you haven’t even met her, don’t even know her name or birthday?”
In the spring of 2023, a case to establish Gary’s paternity of the woman’s daughter was opened.
A few months earlier, the woman had grown suspicious. Using information that Gary had shared with her, along with social media and public records, the woman began investigating his background. She reached out to women who she thought might have had Gary’s children, too, and posted about him in private dating groups on Facebook. Most of the mothers were from Texas and Louisiana.
Ultimately, the woman said she connected with more than 20 women who said Gary had tried to get them pregnant. At least eight had become pregnant. Seven gave birth.
One of those women was Nadia. Nadia’s first conversation with the other New Orleans mother was validating. It was a relief to talk with someone who not only believed her story, but had lived it, too.
Nadia’s daughter had at least five other half-siblings — with another on the way. Two of the children would share a birthday. Two of the mothers had the same name. Five would eventually file for child support. Nadia wondered how many more women, and children, might be out there.
Part 2
On his online dating profiles, he listed his qualities: a high net worth, a tall and athletic build, an advanced education. To his partners, he presented himself as a successful professional, savvy business owner and aspiring family man. He didn’t have children, he would tell them, but he said he deeply wanted them.
Gary wore expensive clothes and frequented upscale bars and restaurants. He drove sports cars and Teslas. He owned nicely furnished homes in Dallas and the New Orleans area. He traveled regularly to domestic and foreign destinations.
The Dallas Morning News spoke to nine of Gary’s former partners, including seven who said they gave birth to his children. They said the persona he had crafted didn’t tell the whole story.
The full truth, they said, was much deeper, and darker. Through his attorney, Gary declined to comment for this story.
A distinct pattern
Gary Alton Matthews Jr. 40, was born March 22, 1986.
Growing up, he was known as “Lil Gary” by his family. He was the oldest of three boys. Later, they would be joined by two half-siblings.
When Gary was 13, his family moved from Virginia to the New Orleans area.
Less than two years later, his parents went through a divorce. Gary and his brothers initially lived with his mother and attended Warren Easton Fundamental Senior High School in New Orleans. He later moved in with his father in Greensburg and graduated from Destrehan High School.
Gary was a strong student. He played defensive back in football and second base in baseball. He attended the University of New Orleans, studying biological sciences.
In 2016, Gary bought a house in Mandeville. In 2021, he sold that house and bought a duplex in New Orleans. He moved into one half of the duplex and made preparations to rent out the other side. That same year, he purchased a townhome in Dallas south of downtown.
Gary flew between New Orleans and Dallas multiple times a month. In April 2018, Gary incorporated a private consulting company, Gary Matthews Healthcare Consulting LLC. He told the women he dated that he worked with hospitals on the management of their electronic medical record systems. Five years later, he would transfer that business to his Dallas address.
By 2020, Gary was dating online in the New Orleans area. At least five women said he began dating or sleeping with them that year.
Online, Gary crafted numerous aliases on dating apps and social media profiles. At different times, the women who dated him said he went by Mr. Grey, Philippe Laurent, and, most recently, Paris Matthews. He was active on Instagram and Facebook.
By the end of 2023, the women who said they’d given birth to Gary’s children had connected after one mother investigated Gary’s background and posted about him in private dating groups.
Most of the children — who the mothers say bear a striking resemblance to Gary — were born within a two-year period. Three were born within a few months of each other in 2022. Two were born on the same day, one year apart. Courts in Texas and Louisiana legally confirmed paternity in the four cases in which testing was completed.
Gary followed a similar pattern in his relationships, according to interviews with the nine former partners.
Gary would meet women online. Sometimes it was through mainstream dating apps such as Hinge or Bumble; other times it was through an escort ad or SeekingArrangement, a sugar baby website. Sometimes the relationship was casual. Sometimes it was transactional. Other times the women believed they were in a relationship.
He would arrange dates at his houses in New Orleans and Dallas, and at bars and restaurants in those cities. Gary’s appearance was distinctive — his boyish face was offset by black curls that were prematurely shot through with gray.
Gary seemed dedicated to his work. He talked about his frequent business travel, which he said included flying to different hospitals across the country. It was not unusual for him to be unavailable in person or by text for significant stretches of time.
Early on, the women said, Gary would share his desire to get married and become a father. He might tell a woman that he’d dreamt of her becoming pregnant. Often, he would joke about “going half on a baby,” a reference to an R. Kelly song. He would encourage family planning, asking about ovulation timing and birth control. At his New Orleans duplex, he showed several women a room he thought would work well for a nursery. He didn’t like to wear condoms. Three women said he ejaculated in them without their permission.
If a woman became pregnant, the tenor of the relationship would shift. Gary, those women said, became busy, distant, standoffish. Texts would go unanswered.
According to texts, messages and court records reviewed by The News, Gary would abruptly announce that, not only had he moved to another state, but he was working abroad — Africa, the Middle East, South America or Japan. There might also be a story about a family or health crisis that needed his attention. It was no longer a good time, he would say, to have a baby.
Sometimes, according to texts and interviews, he would suggest abortion. If that didn’t work, he would employ a different strategy.
Maybe the baby, he would say, wasn’t actually his. The women said Gary made it clear they were on their own.
A relationship falls apart
Katlyn Vlasak said Gary followed that pattern closely in his relationship with her.
Katlyn said she began dating Gary in New Orleans in early 2020, when she was 27, after meeting him on Bumble. They dated for more than a year. Katlyn believed they were in an exclusive relationship.
Early on, she said, Gary expressed the desire for children. They had conversations about the importance of bringing them into the world under the right circumstances.
Having children had never been a part of Katlyn’s plans. When she was a child, both of her parents were in the military, and her dad was frequently deployed. Katlyn had acutely felt their absence. She didn’t want to repeat their parenting mistakes in her own life.
Katlyn remained on the fence. She might consider it, for the right person. She thought Gary might be that person. She thought he was charismatic, and he clearly made good money. He took care of her.
Katlyn found out she was pregnant in mid-2021. She was surprised. She had still been taking her birth control pills every day. Maybe, she thought, it was a sign this was meant to be. Katlyn wondered if Gary might propose.
Katlyn’s hopes soon deflated as she struggled to get in touch with Gary to share the news of the pregnancy. She put together a gift bag that included a baby onesie and the positive pregnancy test. When she went to give it to him, no one answered the door, so she left it on his doorstep.
Later, she said she received a text from Gary, who told her his brother had found the gift bag. There was no excitement. There was no proposal. Instead, she said, he wrote to her that it wasn’t a good time.
Katlyn said Gary told her his aunt had been diagnosed with cancer. He was paying for her treatment. He was also paying for his sister’s tuition at Xavier University. He was now working in Dubai. He would be living there for the foreseeable future.
He shared his credit card information with Katlyn and told her to use it to pay for an abortion. She wrote it down on a slip of paper. It was the credit card he used for his business transactions.
She never heard from him again. Katlyn felt her life begin to unravel. Gary might be gone, but her pregnancy — and predicament — were not going anywhere.
Katlyn worked long hours as a bartender. She did not feel as if she could rely on her family for help. She had never intended to become a mother, much less a single mother. In her heart, she knew she could not parent this child, not without the man who had helped create him.
She considered ending the pregnancy like Gary had suggested, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that, either. Katlyn began exploring the idea of adoption. She connected with an agency called Lifelong Adoptions.
Arrangements did not work out with the first two families she spoke with, but she bonded with the third. The couple had strong family support, good jobs and owned their own home. They visited Katlyn in New Orleans and communicated with her daily as her due date approached. Katlyn felt they were the perfect choice.
The adoptive family met Katlyn at a New Orleans hospital when she began experiencing contractions in April 2022. During labor, Katlyn stopped dilating, and the baby’s heart rate dropped, so she underwent a cesarean section. Afterward, she was in agonizing pain, recovering from the dual insults of labor and major abdominal surgery.
Handing off her newborn son to another family, immediately after giving birth, was its own form of agony. Katlyn knew she was making the right decision. It didn’t make the moment any easier.
Finally, Katlyn shared news of the pregnancy with her mother. She hadn’t wanted her mom to confront Gary, try to change her mind about the adoption or become too attached to a baby she did not intend to keep. She didn’t want to tear her mother’s heart out the way she had just torn out her own.
When Katlyn returned home, she had never felt more alone. Nighttime was the worst. For days, she cried herself to sleep. She kept asking herself the same questions. How did this happen? How had this become her life? Wasn’t she smarter than this? She couldn’t help but feel as though Gary had hijacked her life and used her body against her.
Later, she learned she wasn’t the only one. In fact, she was one of at least three Louisiana women who gave birth to Gary’s children in 2022. There was one significant difference in their stories. Gary didn’t know she had gone on to have their baby. She does not know what he might do when he finds out the truth — that, out in the world, he has another child.
Like an SVU episode
Gary Matthews is far from the first man to father multiple children by different women.
In private online dating groups, men who are intent on getting women pregnant are frequent topics of discussion. Some are teenagers or college students. Others are older professionals and prominent members of the community.
Among the most visible are celebrities and public figures such as Elon Musk, who has at least 14 children with four women, and Nick Cannon, who has 12 children with six women. Both men have spoken proudly about fatherhood, the importance of having children and their unconventional families. There have also been cases of fertility doctors using their own sperm instead of that of intended donors to impregnate their patients.
Gary established a more unusual pattern with an inherent tension at its center. He expressed intent in starting a family, many women said, but only up until the moment they fell pregnant. His interest in fatherhood seemed to vanish the moment it became real.
Nadia Sutton, one of the mothers of Gary’s children, didn’t compare him to the Elon Musks or the Nick Cannons of the world. She recognized aspects of his behavior elsewhere.
There is an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit where a man fathers as many as 47 children in multiple states and countries over the course of a decade. In the season 12 episode, attorney Ken Turner, played by John Stamos, deliberately impregnates a series of women by poking holes in condoms. The detectives on the case call him a reproductive abuser.
Turner tells one of the detectives he is “trying to follow my natural male urge to procreate” and insists he is enriching the women’s lives “with my progeny, and my money.”
“How much time do you spend with your kids?” the detective asks him. “Because it seems to me you spend all of it trying to make more. See, being a father is about support. Not spawn.”
“The only difference,” Nadia said of Stamos’ portrayal, “is he sends a check every month to every child’s mother.”
The desire to get a woman pregnant and the desire to have children with her stem from different psychological impulses, said Justin Lehmiller, a social psychologist specializing in human sexuality and senior research fellow with the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. Lehmiller, who also hosts the podcast Sex and Psychology, has studied sexual fantasy and authored a textbook on the psychology of human sexuality.
Getting someone pregnant, Lehmiller said, touches on themes of masculinity and virility — a man wanting to spread his seed and genes, thereby perpetuating his likeness and image in the world. Evolutionarily, humans are hardwired to want to pass on their traits through the creation of offspring.
In a survey of more than 4,000 people that Lehmiller conducted for his 2018 book, Tell Me What You Want, 31% of male respondents said they had fantasized about getting someone pregnant. Women, meanwhile, are commonly attracted to men who appear to be financially stable, who can protect and provide.
Wanting to have a child, Lehmiller said, is a deeper and more meaningful desire. That impulse is about nurturing and supporting the growth of another human being. Lehmiller said he cannot diagnose Gary or surmise his motivations. He offered this general observation, based on The News’ reporting.
“It sounds like what we would refer to in this area of work as reproductive coercion,” he said, “where somebody is trying to manipulate another person’s reproductive choices for power, control, validation, or some other personal goal.”
Reproductive coercion, according to the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, includes the explicit attempt to impregnate a woman through pressure, persuasion or by tampering with contraception. It’s one of the most serious betrayals, Lehmiller said, that can occur within a relationship.
In a healthy, supportive relationship, the desire to have a baby and start a family together is often a positive sign of a relationship’s strength. When that pregnancy is achieved through reproductive coercion, it undermines that idea, said Karen Trister Grace, an assistant professor at George Mason University’s School of Nursing.
Lehmiller sees a parallel between Gary’s behavior and the growing prevalence of online romance scams, which involve creating a deep connection under false pretenses. While dating apps can work incredibly well for some people, Lehmiller said, they can also provide a new avenue for those who are looking to exploit and take advantage of others. As with any scam, Lehmiller said, it’s common for victims to feel intense shame and embarrassment.
His ‘thing’
Rosalyn Lillard felt like she narrowly escaped the shame and embarrassment felt by some of the mothers of Gary’s children.
Rosalyn said she began seeing Gary in 2016 in Pittsburgh, after meeting him on SeekingArrangement, a sugar baby website. On his profile, she said, his name was listed as “Suit & Ties.” Gary was in town for work. She remembers his profile indicating he was looking for a relationship, not an escort.
At the time, she was in her mid-20s and sleeping on a mattress in her mother’s dining room. The idea of entering a sugar baby arrangement seemed attractive. The second time Gary picked her up from her mother’s house, she said he handed her $350 in cash, and they went to eat at BJ’s.
For years, Rosalyn said Gary would periodically pay for her to fly from Pennsylvania to Louisiana, where she would meet him at his home in Mandeville and, later, his one in New Orleans. He seemed like a normal guy. The first time they had sex, Rosalyn said, Gary did not use a condom, and he ejaculated inside of her without her permission. She told him to never do that again. They had just met, and she didn’t want to get pregnant.
At one point, Rosalyn stopped seeing Gary when she entered a longterm relationship. When it ended, she reconnected with Gary at the end of 2021. She agreed to visit him in Louisiana over a long weekend in early 2022.
One night, Gary took Rosalyn to a party. Gary was walking ahead of her when she said she was stopped by another woman who looked visibly pregnant. The woman asked Rosalyn if she wanted to meet Gary’s baby. She also warned Rosalyn to be careful; Gary wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to get her pregnant. Rosalyn was shaken by the encounter. When she asked Gary who that was, he told her it was an ex-girlfriend. Her baby, he said, wasn’t his.
“I do not have any kids,” Rosalyn said Gary told her.
Rosalyn didn’t believe him. She would soon learn she was pregnant with Gary’s child. The following month, she texted Gary a photo of a faintly positive pregnancy test. Gary responded with his own news. He said he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was also about to book a three-week trip to Canada for work. He was lying, Rosalyn assumed. Again.
“I don’t know why you would very intentionally get me pregnant,” she texted him, “when you knew you had all that going on.”
Days passed. Rosalyn realized Gary had blocked her on Facebook. Gary sent another text. He was packing to move to Utah with his mom for cancer treatment.
“I was not planning for this to happen or to have to make these types decisions with life at the drop of a dime,” he wrote. “I will try to call you today but I dunno about the baby stuff ma’am I don’t even know if I’m 100 percent sure I’ll best cancer I’m hopeful but we shouldn’t chance it.”
“This feels extremely fabricated,” Rosalyn replied.
“You don’t have to call,” she added. “You have a lot goin on. It’s very clear that whatever I end up doing is on me.”
A few days later, Rosalyn had made a decision. She asked Gary to send her money for an abortion. He sent $400. Rosalyn shared a screenshot of the transaction with The News, as well as medical records from an ultrasound.
Rosalyn terminated the pregnancy in March, the month before Katlyn gave birth to Gary’s son. The following year, Rosalyn found out about the other women in Gary’s life. Oh, she realized. This was his thing.
The more Rosalyn learned about what had happened to other women whom Gary had gotten pregnant, the more she felt relieved. The mothers of Gary’s children were all in the position she had chosen to avoid — single parenthood.
“Where are the legal stops,” she said, “to prevent somebody from destroying a dozen lives like this?”
Lacking legal protections
The reality is there aren’t many legal protections for deception that occurs within intimate relationships, said Jill Hasday, a law professor with the University of Minnesota who specializes in family and anti-discrimination law and legal history.
Hasday extensively studied deception between sexual partners, spouses and family members for her 2019 book, Intimate Lies and the Law. She has examined bigamists, adulterers and those who commit reproductive coercion.
If she learned one thing from that research, it’s that anyone can potentially be vulnerable to this kind of deception. Deceit in relationships, which includes violations of sexual autonomy and bodily integrity, Hasday writes in her book, can destroy lives. It is a betrayal that is particularly egregious, she writes, because it occurs within the bounds of relationships that are supposed to be based on a foundation of trust.
Biological parenthood in particular, Hasday writes, is an area that is ripe for intimate deception by men and women alike. There are women who try to entrap men through pregnancy or identify the wrong man as the father of their children. There are men who conceal the fact that they have fathered a child, maintain secret second families or deny paternity of a child they know to be theirs.
People lie, Hasday writes, about using or tampering with birth control, getting vasectomies, the existence of pregnancies and their desire or intent to have children.
Too often, Hasday said, the law fails to have remedies for such deception, even when physical, emotional or financial harm occurs. Lawsuits that involve deception in a business transaction are common. Lawsuits that seek redress for deception that led to the birth of a child tend to be less successful.
In the absence of clear legal remedies, Hasday said, victims tend to rely on self-help. They might find others in similar circumstances to lean on. Such was the case with the mothers of Gary’s children.
Family litigation can itself, Hasday said, become a tool of abuse and replicate the power imbalances in abusive relationships. She views Gary’s behavior, based on The News’ reporting, as abusive on multiple levels — the deceit around conception, the deceit around the paternity tests and his avoidance of paying the child support he owes. In all three areas, she said, Gary is alleged to have gone to extreme lengths.
Another aspect of Gary’s cases, Hasday said, is an uncomfortable truth of family law — that it can force a parent to pay for their children, but it cannot force them to be a part of their lives.
Wendy Murphy, a former sex crimes prosecutor and professor at New England Law Boston, agrees. Murphy, who co-founded the school’s Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Project, has long studied systemic problems in the legal system that mistreat and harm women. She has seen the courts award parental rights to rapists and domestic abusers.
These ingrained biases are highly visible in family court, Murphy said, because the proceedings by design are gendered, men against women. While some men may hold the belief that family court, and in particular custody battles, favor mothers, Murphy sees the system differently.
In that system, she said, there is a disproportionate capacity for judges to mistreat women through rulings, delays, assessment of mental health issues, biased language and inherent skepticism of women’s claims. Men, meanwhile, often have better resources to represent themselves. And they are afforded baseline rights as a father, even if they have never cared for — or even met — their children.
It would be a mistake, Murphy said, to view Gary’s behavior simply through the prism of family law. She believes men should be held accountable not only for the financial consequences of having a child, but for the reproductive coercion that produced the child.
The circumstances under which the women became pregnant, his response to the pregnancies, his repeated denials of paternity, his failure to pay child support and his lack of interest in the children leave Murphy with this conclusion.
Gary, she said, doesn’t deserve to be called a father.
Apparently they have not published part 3 yet. I will try to remember to come back and update the entire story when all 5 parts are out (assuming they're not paywalled at which case I'm sorry!)
As a reminder, the actual news article has images and screenshots of text messages and such. If you're interested I highly recommend going to the article.
Please remember I am not the OP, do not contact the OP!
