Michael Jordan asks Georgia court to dismiss paternity suit

Michael Jordan asked a Georgia court on Monday to dismiss a paternity suit against him. (Kent Smith/Getty Images)

The Charlotte Bobcats were in Portland Monday night to visit the Trail Blazers, but earlier in the day team owner Michael Jordan was busy with a Georgia court over a paternity suit against him.

According to a report from the Associated Press, Jordan asked the judge to dismiss the case, which is scheduled to go to court March 12, on the grounds that the paternity of the teen was "conclusively established" during 2oo3 divorce proceedings between the woman alleging Jordan is the father and her ex-husband. Jordan called it a "shameless, bad faith attempt to abuse the legal system."

The mother, Pamela Y. Smith, wants Jordan to take a paternity test because she believes he is the father of her 16-year-old, Taj. She also wants him to pay child support and some health care costs not covered by her insurance. Smith, 48, also requested that her son's last name be changed from Reynolds -- the boy's father, as identified in the divorce proceedings, is Glenville G. Reynolds -- to Jordan and wants the Georgia Department of Vital Records to issue her son a new birth certificate to reflect the name change.

According to Smith's publicist, April Love, Jordan had met Smith in Chicago in the late 1980s. Love said that the former NBA star should do the right thing and submit to a paternity test:

"Pamela had no choice but to support her son and his desire to forge a relationship with his father," Smith's publicist, April Love, said in a statement Friday. "That's why she is now speaking out and prompting Michael to do the right thing."

Taj posted a video to YouTube on Christmas 2012 urging Jordan "to come out of the dark and stop being secretive about it because he knows I'm his son."