Yesterday, we heard the bizarre story of a Long Island man who is suing the fertility clinic which he claims his ex-girlfriend used to store his "stolen" sperm. Joseph Pressil, 36, says his ex Anetria Burnett used the stolen sperm to get herself pregnant after they broke up, and then sued him for child support. But Burnett's lawyer is firing back, telling the Post that Pressil's story of stolen sperm is ludicrous: “He injected her with hormone shots. How could he not know? They were in a relationship and were trying to get pregnant the old-fashioned way, and they couldn't," said Derek Deyon.
Pressil says he and Burnett, an exotic dancer, only dated for six months when he was living in Texas in 2006. He was more than a little surprised when she informed him she was pregnant with twins after they had broken up: “We always used condoms,” he noted. But when a DNA test proved he was definitely the father, Pressil said he began paying $800 a month in child support. Now, Deyon claims that Pressil's lawsuit against the fertility clinic is a scam just to avoid paying child support.
Deyon argues the Advanced Fertility Center of Texas required a sample of the father’s blood, and the procedure was paid for with Pressil’s insurance and credit card. Danny Sheena, a lawyer representing the fertility clinic, told Click2Houston that some men don't like visiting clinics, so samples are often delivered without the man being present. In Pressil's case, the sperm was delivered in a cup that was sealed in a bag.
He called the lawsuit "suspect" and "disingenuous," saying Pressil had blood work performed and submitted to the clinic around the same time as the in vitro procedure. He also said the clinic has signed consent forms and information sheets from the father. However, Sheena admitted he couldn't say for certain whether the father had ever actually been to the clinic, and that it's possible the forms could have been fabricated by the mother. "When patients provide information like [the ex-girlfriend], we rely on truthful and accurate information," Sheena said.
Jason Gibson, Pressil's attorney, said his client had never set foot in the clinic, and pointed out that this situation is every man's nightmare: "It's not what you're thinking when you're in a relationship. That's not what most people are thinking, that their partner is going to get a special condom, use that condom as soon as you're done having sex, run off to the fertility clinic to go have an IVF procedure. That's certainly not what my client was thinking," Gibson said.
