A new dispute is threatening to hold up an $11.25 million settlement between the City of Fort Worth and Atatiana Jefferson’s estate. <\/p>\n
The estate of Marquis Jefferson, who died just weeks after Atatiana, is now asking for a criminal investigation into alleged fraud in Atatiana’s probate case. <\/p>\n
At a press conference outside the Tarrant County Courthouse on Thursday, Marquis Jefferson’s widow Noella Jefferson said it is not about the money, but about making sure her late husband’s role in Atatiana Jefferson’s life is not erased. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about justice. It\u2019s about honor. It\u2019s about fairness and right-doing,\u201d Noella Jefferson said.<\/p>\n
Marquis Jefferson died 28 days after Atatiana was killed in her mother’s home by a Fort Worth police officer who was later convicted of manslaughter. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt literally broke his heart,\u201d Jefferson said about her late husband.<\/p>\n
Marquis Jefferson’s estate claims he was a father figure to Atatiana since birth, including paying child support and helping her through college. But there is now a dispute over whether Marquis Jefferson had any legal right to be considered Atatiana’s father.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo Mr. Jefferson, from day one, has been on the birth certificate. He found out in 2001 when he was seeking full custody that she was not his biological child,\u201d said Bruce Carter, spokesperson for Marquis Jefferson\u2019s estate.<\/p>\n
Carter says the Jefferson family has been left out of settlement discussions. He’s now asking the Tarrant County District Attorney to investigate what he calls \u201cfraud upon the court\u201d and points to court documents that refer to Atatiana as \u201cAtataina Carr.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no Atatiana Carr. There never was an Atatiana Carr, but somehow someway someone thought it was ok to open a probate court in the name of Atatiana Carr,\u201d Carter said. <\/p>\n
But an attorney for Atatiana’s biological father, Jerome Eschor, who lives in Nigeria, denies the allegations and says Marquis Jefferson was excluded by DNA as Atatiana’s biological father. <\/p>\n
In a statement, attorney Tanika Solomon wrote, in part, \u201cThis current attempt is disrespectful, unfounded and a strange attempt to garner money they are not entitled to under any legal theory\u2026This news is a grotesque attempt to extort fame and fortune from the suffering of a grieving family\u2026Noella and Marquis Jefferson were not left out of anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noella Jefferson, 75, says she’s focused on what she believes is fair for her husband and for Atatiana.\u201cIt\u2019s about standing up and doing the right thing all the time, not just when there\u2019s a moment to maybe gain something from it,” she said.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the City of Fort Worth wrote, \u201cThe City settled with the Estate of Atatiana Jefferson. The probate court is responsible for determining heirship, and the Tarrant County Probate Court appointed an administrator for the Estate, with whom the City negotiated the settlement. Any changes to heirship determinations would be decided by the probate court and the settlement remains subject to approval by the probate court. No funds have been disbursed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new dispute is threatening to hold up an $11.25 million settlement between the City of Fort Worth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,803,116],"class_list":["post-439634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-crime-and-courts","tag-fort-worth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}