SOUTHAVEN — The former wife of Southaven Mayor Greg Davis is seeking $1 million in a lawsuit against a 26-year-old Starkville man who she says broke up her marriage by luring Davis away from her.
Suzann Savage Davis claims in an alienation of affection suit that Jansen Fair told Greg Davis he was looking forward to a tryst in Las Vegas “locked away in bed in each other’s arms.” The Commercial Appeal reported the suit was filed Thursday in DeSoto County Circuit Court.
It’s the latest in a string of legal battles for the Southaven mayor. He was ordered to repay more than $170,000 in city funds that the Mississippi auditor’s office says he misspent and he faces possible criminal charges in an FBI probe. Also, Davis’s former wife seeks to change their divorce terms in a separate court action.
In her suit, Suzann Davis says her former husband’s longtime “deviant homosexual adulterous association” with Fair came to light when she on April 5, 2010 “inadvertently discovered intimate communications” in which Fair told Davis he was looking forward to the Las Vegas trip.
Greg Davis’ lawyer, A.E. “Rusty” Harlow of Grenada, declined comment.
Martin Zummach, Suzann Davis’ lawyer said Friday that Fair is well-known to Davis.
“Jansen Fair was among her children that she took care of when she was a volunteer at a church nursery in Columbus,” he said.
The lawsuit claims that after April 5, 2010, Davis’s wife found out Davis and Fair met through Craigslist, “and they had their first rendezvous at a Starkville restaurant when Davis was there for a Mississippi State basketball game.
The suit also alleges that Fair subsequently “lured” Davis away by offering him a role in “certain lucrative business enterprises,” including a cosmetics store and “eco-friendly condominiums,” and that Fair “persuaded and enticed” Davis to leave his spouse.
In addition to the alienation of affection claim, the lawsuit claims intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy because Fair sought to get Davis to obtain financial information on his wife so Fair would know how much Suzann Davis would receive in a divorce settlement.
Zummach said the state auditor’s office has turned over “a lot of charge receipts” that indicate travel by Davis with Fair. Zummach also said his client has similar records from the city of Southaven, and that they show, among other things, “meals and in-suite movies.”
Davis, meanwhile, has filed a motion in DeSoto Chancery Court seeking to limit his former wife’s access to documents and information in the couple’s ongoing divorce settlement case. The request for a protective order, filed Oct. 4, claims Suzann Davis is seeking the information not because she needs it to prepare for trial, but for “annoyance, embarrassment, and to be unduly burdensome on the defendant.”
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