Man Claims Woman Was Thirsty for Him (Full Episode) | Paternity Court

You may be seated. Hello, Your Honor. Hello.

This is the case of Hall v. Richards. Thank you, Jerome.

Good day, everyone. ALL: Good day. Ms.

Hall, you and your mother are furious with the defendant because he denies your one-month-old son, Demani, and does nothing to support him, is that correct? Yes, Your Honor. Mr Richards, you believe that Ms.

Hall is claiming you are the father because she wants to be with you. You say Ms. Hall was thirsty for love and she needs to go find her child's real dad.

Is that correct? Yes, Your Honor. So Ms.

Hall, you say Mr Richards does nothing to support your son? He does nothing. He denies her son, but basically, he has nothing for her to be thirsty for.

(AUDIENCE EXCLAIMING) Was she thirsty for him and got nothing? She just made a mistake and messed with somebody and got a baby and now we're trying to save my grandson, let him know that he's the dad. Mr Richards.

. . RICHARDS: Yes, Your Honor.

You haven't done anything for the child at all? No, ma'am. JUDGE LAKE: Admittedly.

No, ma'am. And that's because you sincerely doubt paternity? Yes.

He's not gonna do nothing, no. What's the nature of this relationship? Tell me, what was going on here?

The baby's just one month old and everything fell apart already? What is going on? A couple of years back, he broke my heart.

Then, I decide. . .

He hit me up and I decided to give him another chance. You all were boyfriend and girlfriend a couple of years ago or you were just dating? We were dating.

And so he breaks your heart. . .

Yes. And you didn't see each other for a while? Yeah.

And then somehow, he comes back into the picture because if he's potentially the father. . .

He has been messaging her, hitting her up. Telling her "Hey," and it went from there. So you reached back out to her, Mr Richards?

Yes, ma'am. JUDGE LAKE: You did do that? Yes.

So you admit that you were involved with her in 2013. . .

2013. Yes, ma'am. You broke up, she says you broke her heart.

So why would you then stop reaching back out to her? To be honest, it wasn't just like I broke her heart in 2013, we had an issue. It was like.

. . It broke both of our hearts, I guess you could say that.

So this time, felt like maybe I was wrong for the way I ended things the last time, so I gave her another chance. So how did you reach out to her? Instagram, DM.

Told her, "Hey," she replied, and it went from there. So how is she thirsty if he hit her up? The thirst is going both ways, ma'am.

Um, I would. . .

WEST: But he called her thirsty, though. I would admit I was being thirsty also. How's it going both ways if.

. . Okay, hold on.

And what. . .

The "thirst"? I don't understand this. What does "thirst" mean?

Does thirst mean you. . .

What does that mean? RICHARDS: Let me tell you. It's the fact that I knew I wasn't gonna have a long relationship with her but when you feed somebody the lies that you know they wanna hear, that's "thirst" to get what you want from them.

Oh! But yeah, now it's a baby involved, what's your thirst? And now I feel like she's being thirsty, trying to put the baby on me.

WEST: But you got nothing. JUDGE LAKE: So. .

. Oh, oh! Oh, I just get it.

I must got something if you want something. So thirst. .

. Wait, wait. So "thirst" is manipulation.

Yeah. So you were extra thirsty. .

. A little bit. .

. . because you reached out to her and with manipulating the situation to bring her back into the picture.

Because you just wanted to, what, date her again? 'Cause you said to me you did it because you thought the last time it didn't end right. Yeah, that was probably something I told her that she wanted to hear, Your Honor.

JUDGE LAKE: No, you told me that. So don't tell me what you think she want to hear, tell me the truth. I mean, that's the truth.

Did you reach back out to her because you felt like you wanted to rekindle the relationship because you thought it would work, or did you reach back out to her because you just wanted to be involved with her for the time being? For the time being, Your Honor. (AUDIENCE EXCLAIMING) JUDGE LAKE: Okay.

Ms. Hall, were you happy to hear from him? Kinda.

What do you mean? Explain. Like, it ended bad, but in the same token, I did like him.

So, when he hit me up, it kinda like, "Oh, I think I should give him another chance. "Maybe it'll work out this time. " All right.

At what point. . .

So you all start, obviously, having sex again. Yeah. Using protection all the time or not?

No. Not at all. (CHUCKLES) So how long did this relationship go on?

Basically, a week. JUDGE LAKE: A week? It was like a fling.

They stopped talking and then he came to spend time with her for her birthday and stayed a week. Then when he left, it was, "Oh, I don't want you no more," and talking crap again. So you went to stay with her for a week, Mr Richards and then after that, you basically broke up with her again?

No, Your Honor. I think I was there for no longer than four days, and I didn't just leave and break up with her. When I left, I had a reason for breaking up with her.

So. . .

What was the reason? RICHARDS: Well, the day I was leaving I go to the bus, it was about 9:00, 10 o'clock. I found out the bus didn't come to where I was going until three o'clock that afternoon.

So, I called her, I told her I was coming back. She asked me where I was, I told her I was coming up the hill. So, as I was walking up the hill, there is a guy coming out the gate.

So, who's the guy coming out the gate? Where's he coming from? That's the guy that lives in the back.

It was a backhouse, too. It's a duplex, and there's a backhouse. So there's a guy coming out the gate, and in your mind, you think he's coming from her place.

Not at that point in time, no. Okay. So I go in, and her mom pulled up to drop off some water or some soda or something, and when she went out there, I grabbed her phone and went through her phone and there's text messages from someone saying that I'm outside.

So when I go outside to get the water, I looked across the street, it's the same dude I've seen coming out the gate. So I'm like, "Whoa! " I didn't say anything, and I probably spent the rest of that day on the couch till the bus came.

Bus came, I hopped on the bus, soon as I got on the bus, officially on the bus, I sent the message. Like, "I've seen the messages in your phone, "but I've seen the guy across the street," and. .

. That's where it ended. I told her to block my number.

Okay, so had you all made some type of commitment to one another? What would give you the right to take her phone, look in it and then be angry if somebody was texting her? (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) WEST: Especially if she can't have him.

. . It sounds like.

. . I mean, yeah.

He was looking for something. Well, it sounds like you went there to play her and then you got played, and then you done typed. .

. Or you could say I was looking for a reason not to talk to her anymore. So, tell me, Ms.

Hall, at what point did you find out you were pregnant? When I was four months. JUDGE LAKE: So you found out you were pregnant.

Did you immediately think it was Mr Richard's child? I knew, but I didn't want to tell him 'cause how we broke up and how disrespectful he was to me. So you just kept it to yourself?

Yeah, I didn't tell nobody until me and my mom sat down and she asked me, 'cause the conception date. . .

When she told me her due date we discussed it and I told her "Even if it's gonna be a problem, tell him so he can't never say "that he didn't know "and that you never told him. " And so did you do that, did you follow your mom's advice? HALL: Yeah, I told him, and this is the result.

JUDGE LAKE: You reached out to him? Yeah. By phone, by text, how?

By Instagram. By Instagram. 'Cause he had me blocked on everything.

And what was his response? It's not his. That's what you told her, Mr Richards?

She told me that she was pregnant and I was like, "Okay. " And, "Whose is it? " And she said, "Yours.

" And then I was like, "So. . .

"What happened to the other guy I've seen? "What happened to the other guy I heard about? " So what happened to this other guy, Ms.

Hall? It wasn't no other guy. So you still maintained that that was a guy that lived in the backhouse behind your house and that wasn't another guy he saw leaving your house?

Yes. And you're saying you weren't involved with anybody else during that time except for Mr Richards. Yes.

Sexually. Did you get a date of conception from the doctor? I mean, look, it only takes one time but he was just there for a week.

So it would be easy to calculate in terms of a conception window whether he was even in town then. January 11th. So Mr Richards, when did you go to visit Ms.

Hall? At the beginning of January, and I was gone by January 9th. I took pictures the day I was leaving.

When I got on the bus. . .

WEST: But even if he says he was gone January 9th doctors will tell you, if you have sex it can take up to two to three days to. . .

For a man's sperm and eggs to fertilize. Right, so you still in the window. You know that, right?

Yes. JUDGE LAKE: Okay. JUDGE LAKE: You're still in the window.

But what your question then, is. . .

Who else is in the window? Exactly. That's all I'm here to find out.

He says he saw other people texting you in the phone. He had only been there a week. You all had just rekindled it.

You admitted yourself, Ms. Hall, "I wasn't sure about him, I don't really know. " Were you involved with anybody else during that time, sexually?

No. May I say something? You know, I asked her, like I said, when I left that day, I told her that I'd seen the messages and I told her I'd seen the dude.

She said that there was no other guy. She told me from her own mouth, that the guy was a guy that "liked" her, and he only brings her things and her kids things. They don't do anything else.

You testified earlier that this was some random man that lived in the house behind your house and he was just leaving out of his house through the gate. So do we know him, or we don't know him? Is he giving you gifts or is he not giving you gifts?

What is. . .

What is this? So it's not a man that lived in the house. It was a man that was pursuing you.

Yeah, but he wasn't there that day. Oh, you're saying the man he saw at the gate is not the man that was pursuing you? Like, the day after my birthday, the man, like, before he ever came around, the man, like, he used to text me, like, he used to bring stuff for my kids.

And that was it. He told me he wanted to show me how a man's supposed to treat a woman, but, never touched me, never nothing. So you're saying you were never intimate with him, though.

Never. So the messages that he saw, that Mr Richards saw in your phone were from that man? Yeah.

But the man that was leaving out the gate is not that man, or was it that man? It wasn't. So Mr Richards, did you.

. . Is it your testimony that Ms.

Hall told you that the man leaving out of the gate is the man that was bringing her the gifts? Or it was the one on the phone? She told me that the man that I've seen standing outside, when I went out there to get the water that said he was outside in her phone, she said that man was the man.

. . Because he sent the text, "I'm outside.

" That's the man that brings gifts. Was he outside, Ms. Hall?

Was that him? Was he outside at that time? No.

How do I know about this man? So how did. .

. Yeah. Right.

I don't. . .

He was there a couple of days. So how does he know it was on that exact day? He was so mad, and he left and all this and that.

Oh, you're saying he doesn't even know if that text, "I'm outside," came through on that particular day or if he was reading a previous text from another day when he was outside because he was bringing you things? Yeah. Exactly.

So, Mr Richards, were you sure of the date? Ma'am, that's the reason I grabbed the phone. 'Cause it went off, and it was that message saying, "I'm outside.

" JUDGE LAKE: Got you. But he told you he was looking for a reason to break up with her and not deal with her, but now it's, "I grabbed the phone because it went off. " I wasn't looking for a reason.

That was a reason that I gave her. That's what he just told you. RICHARDS: That was the reason I gave her.

I already had it in my head I was done with her. That was the reason that she gave me that I put out there. So when she asked me why am I done, that was the reason I gave her.

And it was a hell of a good one. What I'm trying to understand is, how we got to the point where there's so much doubt surrounding her pregnancy when you, admittedly, Mr Richards, went to visit her, slept with her, unprotected, for almost an entire week and left two days before the prescribed conception date, which we know makes you fall in that window. What else?

Other than me seeing that guy in the messages, there was just my relative, heard from one of her relatives that she was living with the man the whole time she was pregnant. I never lived with nobody. With another man.

Well, not lived with him, he lived with her, whatever. He's saying hearsay 'cause he don't even know that to be true. He's just bringing up something like he did with the brother.

Just to say something. That's just through the grapevine. Are you just talking in circles, Mr Richards?

Because you went and. . .

At the end of the day, ma'am, I'm saying that until I know for sure that it is mine I can't do nothing for the baby. Period. That's your position?

And so, you recognize, Ms. Hall, that he has doubt. Right?

Yeah. And quite frankly, you all were not in enough of a relationship. You didn't even have enough of an association for him to be positive.

Because coming to visit somebody for four days. . .

Yes, it makes him a possibility but I do understand why he would have doubt until he is sure. But you say you are sure. HALL: Yeah.

Without a doubt that he is your child's biological father. Yes. (JUDGE LAKE SIGHS) It's only one way to get down to the bottom of this, Jerome.

RICHARDS: Let's get it. WEST: Yes, thank you. It's time to get the results.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) These results were prepared by DNA Diagnostics and they read as follows. In the case of Hall v. Richards, when it comes to one-month-old Demani Hall.

. . JUDGE LAKE: It has been determined by this court, Mr Richards, you.

. . Are the father.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING) WEST AND HALL: Thank you. WEST: Thank you! (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) JUDGE LAKE: You are the father.

Thank you. That's your beautiful little boy. AUDIENCE: Aw!

JUDGE LAKE: How does it feel? Like being a dad all over again. (LAUGHS) How do you feel in this moment, Ms.

Hall? I see tears in your eyes. What are you feeling?

I'm angry, 'cause. . .

He made me, like, I'm just trying to frame him when I didn't want him to be my baby daddy. You didn't? (RICHARDS LAUGHS) She's saying, like, after how he talked to her, she didn't want a kid with him, but she don't have a choice after he already made.

Look, I'mma cut to the chase in this moment. You're not gonna use this baby as a pawn. .

. HALL: (SNIFFLES) No. .

. . because he ain't gonna do right, not by you, but he might do right by the baby.

And that's what you gotta look at right now. But now we've got to be very careful in this moment. But Mr Richards, you're gonna have to step up.

But you're gonna have to hold all that, your thirstiness, all of that, your thirst, you gotta leave that alone now, because your child is thirsty for your attention, your love, your protection. . .

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) Right? And your provision. And understand that this innocent baby deserves your best effort.

Mr Richards, don't play with that woman. Because you mess up her mind, you mess up your child. Now tell these men out here, you're messing around with these mothers, breaking their heart, taking them up and down, around the block and you smiling about it, talking about thirst.

Thirst begets thirst. (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) Right? (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) All right, I wish you all the very best of luck.

Court is adjourned.