TOM SANDLER PHOTO (left), MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS FILE PHOTO
Chris Bosh, the face of Toronto's struggling NBA franchise, is being cast in U.S. court documents as a deadbeat father who broke up with his girlfriend when she was seven months pregnant, leaving her destitute and without medical care even as she fell ill.
The court documents, filed in Maryland on behalf of Bosh's former live-in girlfriend, Allison Mathis, who is seeking child support and sole custody, allege that in early 2008 Mathis and Bosh planned to get married. According to the filings, whose allegations have been denied by Bosh, they made a consensual decision to have a child together and Bosh, who is earning a salary of $14.4 million (U.S.) this season, paid for a fertility drug to hasten the process.
Not long after Mathis conceived – at last year's NBA all-star weekend in New Orleans, according to a sworn affidavit signed by Mathis – the couple moved into a jointly owned $1.6 million home in Frisco, Tex.
But upon Bosh's return from the Beijing Olympics in August of last year, the player signalled his intention to, according to the complaint, "move on" from the relationship. With Mathis seven months pregnant it is alleged Bosh stopped supporting her financially and attempted to have her removed from their home. Without money to pay for her obstetrician appointments, let alone a means of transportation to attend them, Mathis, according to the documents, suffered "breakthrough bleeding and a constantly upset stomach" while utility companies threatened to disconnect her electricity, gas and water.
According to the filings, Mathis returned to the Maryland suburbs of Washington, where she had grown up, to live with her mother in a two-bedroom apartment; was admitted to hospital due to complications in the pregnancy; and delivered the baby by emergency C-section on Nov. 2. Four-month-old Trinity Meyers Mathis, according to the documents, has laid eyes on her father but twice, both times in his hotel room, once when the Raptors were in town to face the Wizards.
The complaint, which contains allegations that have not been proven in court, says Bosh contested his paternity before genetic testing determined a 99.97 per cent probability that he is Trinity's father. Bosh, who turns 25 today, did not return a request for comment yesterday. Said Vincent Wills, Bosh's Maryland-based attorney: "Obviously Chris denies all the allegations in the complaint. We're going to be filing our response to the filing within the next week or so."
The case, perhaps, is the missing piece in explaining a sometimes puzzling decline in the on-court performance of Bosh and the Raptors. Bosh, an iconic figure in Toronto and beyond known both for his athletic prowess and his gift for starring in viral Internet videos, was proclaiming himself a candidate for league MVP in the midst of a stellar November. But Mathis filed suit on Nov. 26, 2008, and, not long after, Bosh and the Raptors fell into an abyss. Bosh, who averaged 26 points a game on 54 per cent shooting in November, averaged 21 points a game on 44 per cent shooting in December, and the team he leads, after putting together a win-loss record of 8-8 in October and November, went 4-12 for December, a stretch of abysmal play that saw coach Sam Mitchell fired and a hotly anticipated season began to disintegrate into its current tatters.
Mathis, 28, met Bosh in 2005 and was a hard-to-miss courtside fixture for most of the previous couple of seasons. Once a personal chef to the Dallas Cowboys, according to the filings, she was for a while Bosh's near-constant companion. Last year she sported a sizeable ring on the finger usually reserved for matrimonial promises even as Bosh denied an engagement, and she became something of a public figure when LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers all-star, cited her courtside trash-talking as a motivating factor in James's 39-point outpouring in a Cleveland win at the Air Canada Centre. The video of Mathis jawing with James was shown on highlight loops around the continent. "(Mathis) got more (TV) time than me and Bosh," James said after that game.
Mathis did not return a call seeking comment yesterday. Said Lois Finkelstein, Mathis's Maryland attorney: "We will reserve our comments for the court."
The complaint against Bosh speaks of Mathis's bleak existence since she left the couple's Texas home last summer.
"(Mathis's) expenses are mounting both for her and (Trinity), but she has no way to satisfy these obligations," it states. "(Mathis) has asked (Bosh) to assist with these expenses, but he has failed and refused to do so ... (despite) his overwhelming ability to do so."
Though Bosh remained silent yesterday, he has spoken periodically of his "trying" season, and club insiders have whispered allusions to "off-court stuff" to explain his inconsistencies. In hindsight, he appears to have taken some public joy in fatherhood, albeit cryptically. On Jan. 7, the day of Bosh's alleged first meeting with his daughter in that D.C. hotel room, the Raptors captain posted an effusive message on Twitter, the micro-blogging site to which he is a frequent contributor, which belied his professional struggles and his personal turmoil.
"I'm on top of the world right now," went Bosh's tweet. "I've seen the new light!"
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