The Illinois Supreme Court said Wednesday it would not hear an appeal in the long-running legal dispute between retired Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan and an Indianapolis woman.
Jordan and Karla Knafel went to court in 2002 after she claimed he agreed in 1991 to pay her $5 million when he retired from professional basketball to keep an affair secret. DNA tests later showed her child wasn’t Jordan’s.
Jordan claimed Knafel was trying to extort him, and he won an appellate court decision last December. Knafel asked the state’s highest court to reconsider, but it refused without explaining why.
The woman accused of extortion by Michael Jordan responded with her own lawsuit Tuesday, saying he offered her $5 million to keep quiet about their relationship.
Karla Knafel asked the court to force Jordan to pay her the money because he was in breach of contract.
Jordan filed a lawsuit in October, contending he had a relationship with Knafel more than 10 years ago and paid her $250,000 "under threat of publicly exposing that relationship.''
Jordan's lawsuit said Knafel tried to extort another $5 million.
On Tuesday, Knafel's lawyer, Michael Hannafan, said: "It was Jordan who initially offered to pay her $5 million in the spring of 1991 for her agreement not to file a public paternity proceeding and for keeping their sexual relationship publicly confidential.''
Knafel alleges she gave birth twice -- once to a stillborn child that was Jordan's offspring and a second time to a daughter who is not Jordan's child, sources told ESPN's Shelley Smith. That daughter is now 11 years old.
Knafel's lawyer said his client and Jordan had a sexual relationship from 1989 to 1991 in Chicago, Indianapolis and Phoenix. Knafel discovered she was pregnant shortly after being with Jordan in November 1990, Hannafan said.
At that time, she believed the child was Jordan's, he said.
Jordan then offered her $5 million to buy her silence about their relationship and about the child she thought was his, said Hannafan. He said Knafel is not today claiming the child is Jordan's.
"I will tell you that the alleged claim of extortion by Michael Jordan and his lawyers is nothing but baloney,'' Hannafan added.
Jordan's attorney, Frederick Sperling, said Tuesday that the basketball great authorized him "to state that the papers Karla Knafel filed with the court today are full of lies. Any allegation that Michael Jordan is the father of any of Karla Knafel's children is completely untrue.''
Knafel's counterclaim alleges she met Jordan after being introduced over the phone by NBA referee Eddie F. Rush, who was in Indianapolis for a Bulls game against the Pacers.
Knafel claims she was singing at a hotel when Rush, who is still employed as an NBA referee, complimented her and they began talking about basketball. Later the referee called Jordan's hotel room and Jordan talked to Knafel.
Knafel claims she declined an invitation to meet Jordan the next day because she had a headache, but that he continued calling her and eventually met her at a Chicago hotel in December 1989. Jordan had married his wife, Juanita, that September. She claims Jordan told her his marriage was a "business arrangement'' meant to help his public image.
When Jordan was told by a Wizards spokesman that reporters wanted to ask him about the countersuit, Jordan declined to meet with the media after the Wizards' practice Tuesday.
As he was leaving the team's locker room, Jordan said he would speak on the subject Wednesday after practice, although he would not guarantee he would say more than "no comment."
Jordan has asked the court for an injunction barring further extortion efforts and a declaration that Knafel's demand is unenforceable because of her "existing obligation not to publicly expose the relationship.''
Jordan and his wife, Juanita, were married more than 12 years ago. She filed for divorce last January but since withdrew the case and issued a joint statement with her husband saying they were attempting reconciliation.
Michael Jordan Secret affair with Karla Knafel
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