Woman talks about moving forward after lawsuit

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - A plaintiff in a civil case against a Grand Junction doctor who is accused of using his own sperm instead of donor sperm to impregnate women is sharing her story after winning the lawsuit.

Maia Emmons-Boring said that the case began when she took a DNA test from Ancestry.com. Shortly after, she was contacted by another woman who claimed to be her half-sibling. But that wasn’t the only half sibling she would find.

“So it was about three weeks later, I think the exact date was January 24th when I finally put all the puzzle pieces together,” said Emmons-Boring.

Growing up, she said she had no idea about the man who raised her, or that the man she called dad wasn’t her biological father. It wasn’t until she took the test to learn about her genetic history that she found out. After talking with other half-siblings she found, things started to come together.

“I learned how to build out these mirror trees, which is basically taking your relatives, in this case on your paternal side, and building a backwards family tree,” said Emmons-Boring. “And it all met with Dr. Jones. That’s how I figured it out.”

Emmons-Boring said she made contact with Jones through attorneys via a letter in April 2019, but he made no response or any acknowledgement of having got the letter.

“All we originally wanted was for him to admit what he did and for health history, the family history,” said Emmons-Boring. “So that’s when the lawsuit was filed, the end of October 2019. That’s because he wouldn’t give us anything that we had asked for.”

Not knowing her genetic health history troubled Emmons-Boring.

“I don’t feel people understand how hard it is to not know half of your genetic family,” said Emmons-Boring. “I don’t think that a lot of people that aren’t in our shoes understand that. I know I didn’t understand it before all of this happened. I didn’t see the big deal in it. So I really want people to understand that it’s important to those of us that don’t have it. You don’t realize you miss it until you don’t have it.”

Jones renewed his medical license around his 80th birthday in 2019, but shortly after the lawsuit was filed he surrendered his license and was no longer permitted to practice medicine.

Then in April 2022, the civil case against Jones was in court. The jury listened to testimony for more than a week before deliberating.

“That was probably worse than testifying, the waiting for a verdict,” said Emmons-Boring. “That was harder, a lot of anxiety.”

Once she got the call that the jury had reached a verdict, she immediately went to the Mesa County Justice Center.

“So we sat in the courtroom and all of us were on one bench and I remember I was holding my parents hands, my mom and my dad’s hands as the verdict was read,” said Emmons-Boring. “And it was just this huge relief when we heard that the jury sided for us on every single thing.”

The jury awarded them $8.7m.

Now that the lawsuit is over, Emmons-Boring is looking forward to moving on and helping other people who may be the victims of fertility fraud.

“I’m already working with Rep. Kerry Tipper and a donor conceived council to pass a bill actually in Colorado. It’s for the protection of donor concieved people,” said Emmons-Boring. “The donor would have to agree to give information regarding their health, their full name and agree to update it as things change. And then the biggest thing I think, it would give the donor concieved person all that information when they turned 18, if they request it.”

Emmons-Boring is referring to SB22-224, which was introduced to the Colorado senate April, 22.

To find more information about the bill, visit: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb22-224

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