Paternity Suit Claims Garvey Is a Womanizer

ATLANTA —  A paternity suit filed by an Atlanta woman against baseball star Steve Garvey claims that Garvey ran around with other women and broke their engagement after she told him she was pregnant.

Rebecka Mendenhall’s paternity and breach-of-promise lawsuit against Garvey seeks damages that include the cost of a wedding that never took place. The two were to be married April 1, it said.

A copy of Mendenhall’s lawsuit, which has been under seal since March 2, was obtained Wednesday by the Atlanta Constitution. The complaint became available when Garvey’s attorneys filed papers to transfer the case from Fulton County Superior Court to federal court, attaching a copy of the original suit.

The lawsuit portrays Garvey as a womanizer who began and continued relationships with several women at the time he asked Mendenhall to marry him.

Garvey has admitted that it is possible that he impregnated both Mendenhall and a San Diego woman, but he has said that “in both cases, I was led to believe that I wasn’t responsible for birth control.”

Mendenhall is employed by Cable News Network. Garvey, now retired, was an all-star first baseman with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres.

According to the lawsuit, the relationship between Mendenhall and Garvey lasted from August, 1987, until January of this year, when Garvey told her that a woman in San Diego, identified in the lawsuit as Cheri Moulton, claimed she was pregnant by Garvey. The complaint also says that on Jan. 23, after he was told Mendenhall was pregnant, Garvey broke their engagement and told Mendenhall he was in love with a third woman.

The third woman is identified as Candace Thomas, whom Garvey has since married.