People: Court rules Sherri Shepherd can’t get out of surrogacy contract
Television personality and actress Sherri Shepherd has been found legally responsible for a child born to a surrogate she and her ex-husband hired before they divorced, a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled this week in upholding the surrogacy contract.
Shepherd had fought to have the contract voided. The ruling means she must continue paying $4,100 a month in child support, according to a lawyer for ex-husband Lamar Sally, who is raising the 1-year-old boy in Los Angeles.
“She doesn’t want to be part of his life. It’s all good,” Sally told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “I’m going to be parent enough for the both of us.”
Shepherd had roles in several sitcoms and movies and co-hosted ABC’s “The View” from 2007 to 2014. Her lawyer did not immediately return a message Tuesday.
She had paid more than $100,000 and Sally another $5,000 for a suburban Philadelphia surrogate to carry the child conceived through a procedure that used his sperm and a donor egg.
The couple, then living in New Jersey, attended the surrogate’s medical appointments until Shepherd had a change of heart in the second trimester, as her marriage faltered, the court ruling said.
The initial birth certificate listed the surrogate as the mother, prompting California authorities to seek support from her when Sally settled there, according to his lawyer, Tiffany Palmer. Sally is a writer and substitute teacher.
The owner of the surrogacy agency they used praised the decision, which makes Shepherd the legal mother listed on the birth certificate.
Stamos on 3-year probation for DUI
John Stamos was sentenced to three years of probation Tuesday after he pleaded no contest to driving under the influence of a drug earlier this year.
Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Jane Godfrey also ordered Stamos to attend 52 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and a counseling session as part of his sentence in the misdemeanor case.
Blair Berk, an attorney for the “Full House” star, entered the plea Tuesday on Stamos’ behalf.
The 52-year-old actor was briefly hospitalized in June after Beverly Hills, California, police arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence. Police have not identified the substance they suspect Stamos had taken, and it was not addressed in court.
If Stamos successfully completes the sentence, the case can be dismissed and expunged, Berk said.