Tristan Thompson is suing a woman who claims he’s the father of her child, despite a negative paternity test. She wants him to take a second test — here’s why he won’t have to.
Tristan Thompson,29, is taking Kimberly Alexander to court because she’s claiming that he’s the father of her five-year-old son, even after he took a paternity test that came back negative. Kimberly refuses to accept the results of the DNA test because the lab that tested Tristan has previously worked with his ex Khloe Kardashian, 35, and her family. Kimberly claims there’s a conflict of interest and wants the NBA player to submit to a second test. But, according to two experts, the results of the first DNA test will stand up in court and Tristan won’t be required to take a second test.
Family law attorney, Kelly Chang Rickert, tells HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY that Kimberly’s request is both unusual and unjustified. “DNA testing brings about a great amount of grief and stress on the person being tested, and if there is a conclusive result, no retest will be allowed. It is also uncommon to dispute DNA tests.” The L.A. based attorney ads, “I don’t think this woman is justified in requesting a second DNA test.”
David Nicholson, Managing Director of DNA Legal, tells HL EXCLUSIVELY, that DNA tests are almost never questioned in court. In fact he says, “less than 0.1% of cases are disputed.” And according to the DNA expert the reason they are so rarely disputed is two pronged. First, he explains that “DNA Legal tests are 99.999999% positive confirmation of paternity and 100% accurate for exclusions of paternity. The only way to get more accurate is to test every person in the world.”
In addition to being more than 99% accurate, when a paternity test is done legally, providers follow a strict chain of command to ensure there is no tampering with the results. “Legal tests follow a full chain of custody process with ID and documents checked,” David tells HL. “So, provided all people involved follow this process, any tampering can be picked up.”
In order to make the paternity tests tamper proof a very strict chain of custody is followed. According to David, the chain of custody means that the person being tested “visits a registered collection centre or a certified technician attends their home. They then provide photo ID and the collators takes photos of them on a secure mobile app. The collector carried out the appointment by taking DNA samples and placing them and the paperwork in a tamper proof evidence bag (bank vault secure) that shows if anyone has opened it. The lave then gets the samples and checks that no tampering has occurred. Reports are then issued with photos, ID and COC verification complete. This ensures a robust chain of custody process.”
Because Tristan did his DNA test at a certified facility that follows strict rules the courts won’t require any retesting. “If the test had been done ‘at home’ for peace of mind then the court would request a legal test to be done,” David tells HL. “There are full chain of custody processes, so, as long as all processes were followed, there would not need to be a retest.”
