My second objection to this article is the implication that Jill Odom was pursuing punitive (punishing) measures against Carlos Coy. Although I don’t know the exact nature of their relationship in 200-2001, it does not appear to have been particularly hostile, even considering Miss Odom’s legal actions of the time.
In April of that year, Jill Odom filed a lawsuit seeking to have Coy formally declared the father of her son, Jordan Dominique Odom, and to have him begin paying child support.
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While she praised Coy for his informal support of herself and the child -- "If I needed something, he would get it" -- her lawsuit hardly reflected that Coy had come up with assistance on a steady basis.
Articles mentioning Miss Odom invariably say that she ‘sued’ Coy. I guess that may be the correct term, but in general use it implies an aggressive action. In reality, it appears that she simply asked the court to declare him the father of their son. I think it’s likely she realized that he was making it big, and she wanted a concrete legal arrangement to provide for her child.
Even Coy's response seemed somewhat casual; in fact his lack thereof almost led to a default judgment in the case. After DNA testing to confirm paternity, the settlement called for Coy to pay $28,000 in back child support and $2,000 more for Odom's prenatal and birth expenses. He was to contribute $1,500 to a college fund for the boy, and begin paying $900 monthly in regular child support. Odom received primary custody.
Whether or not you agree with what she did, it was the smart thing to do. She could have prosecuted him at this point, but there is no mention of her filing any charges. From what she said at the trial, it appears that he had been taking care of her and she didn’t have a problem with him. If she was working at a strip club at age 13, she’s probably one of the millions who had to grow up fast and make hard choices; she admitted in court that Coy did not know her real age.
He did know she was only a middle school student, because he used to pick her up after her seventh-grade classes.
Uh, what now? The way he says this, it sounds like Coy used to walk in with the soccer Moms and sign her out of class. What does this guy mean, he picked her up from school? Did she have him walk her out of the building every day? Pick her up in the front? Wait at a nearby corner, or a gas station?
But even if she wasn’t sneaky enough to say ‘Meet me at the Valero’, Carlos Coy was a high school freshman for two years…He was a 17-year-old in a class of 14 year-olds.
From his point of reference the idea of someone being held back for two, three years would have seemed perfectly natural. So no, going off this information I don’t think it’s obvious that he would have known that because she was in middle school, she was a certain age.
The Pasadena woman said that when she became pregnant, Coy offered to marry her. That was quickly nixed by her parents, who refused to have anything to do with him.
So eventually, the parents knew that there was sex involved. No charges were filed at this time, which suggests that either they just didn’t give a fuck, or they knew their daughter was capable of making choices at that age, knew she wasn’t victimized, and figured it would make more sense to get child support than a court date.
When the suit naming Coy as the legal father was filed, Odom was 20 years old; apparently doing a good job raising her son, (Coy mentioned that he was proud of his son, and that he was doing well in school) and not trying to put Coy behind bars. That decision was made for her a year later, by Other Mother.
On September 25, a stunned Carlos Coy was behind bars, charged with aggravated sexual assault of the girl and also of Odom, the mother of the child he'd fathered in a relationship that began when she was 13.
I can’t stress this enough; he was charged for sleeping with Jill Odom…But never prosecuted. The DA’s office chose not to go forward with the one case that offered physical evidence, choosing instead to convict him of a crime using nothing more than accusations.
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