He-done-me-wrong song falls flat

And she thought Simon Cowell was a tough judge.

A Douglas County District judge socked Jessica Hotovy — a former “American Idol” contestant from Omaha — with a $31,000 judgment after finding her performance in a courtroom less than convincing.

Judge James Gleason ruled that Hotovy, a married mother who made it through the Omaha auditions for “Idol” in 2007, duped a Colorado man out of $31,000 by claiming she was pregnant with, and had given birth to, the man's son.

The problem: Like some bad original song from a desperate contestant, Hotovy made the whole thing up, the judge concluded.

There was an affair. But, Gleason ruled, there was no pregnancy. No unborn child nicknamed “Peanut.” No child born prematurely. No regal sounding name — Jack Michael David Hotovy — on a birth certificate.

Her paramour, a 45-year-old Denver software executive by the name of David Blatherwick, said he was strung along by a woman who at one point claimed that she had a stillbirth and then claimed that doctors miraculously revived their child.

Blatherwick eventually sued Hotovy, alleging she had milked $31,000 out of him on the pretense of the pregnancy and birth.

Hotovy fired back, contending that the imaginary baby was Blatherwick's creation, his excuse to get out of his second marriage. And, she said, he gave her $31,000 to shield that money from his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Gleason rejected those claims in a ruling last month — a ruling Hotovy vows to appeal.

Attorneys, court documents and 62 pages of texts reveal that the saga played out while Hotovy was glowing in her 15 minutes of “Idol” fame here, holding viewing parties and appearing on local radio and television shows.

As it turns out, “American Idol” couldn't match the drama playing out in these two lives.

“I look back on this whole thing and the word ‘snookered' comes to mind,” Blatherwick said. “Plain and simple, I got snookered.”

Hotovy, meanwhile, said Blatherwick is nothing more than a jilted lover who sued her because she broke off their relationship.

“Oh, my gosh, it's completely false,” she said. “It's not even kind-of-funny false. This guy is just a total psycho who freaked out when I said I wasn't leaving my husband. And this is his way of throwing it back in my face.”

* * *

The two met, as luck would have it, in a Las Vegas airport bar in late November 2007.

Then 29, Hotovy carried an acoustic guitar and an intriguing back story: The only “Idol” contestant from Omaha, she was returning from Hollywood after leaving the show during an early round.

A wealthy computer whiz who often talks about whether he's in a good or bad “space” in his life, Blatherwick had a thriving software career, a dying marriage and an instant attraction to this free spirit.

She changed her flight to Denver — and the two began their affair at the airport Marriott.

Within a month, Blatherwick filed for divorce from his second wife — with whom he had two children. Hotovy, who has a daughter from a previous relationship, said she and her husband essentially were separated at the time.

Over the next two months, Blatherwick said the two saw each other six times in Denver and Omaha.

Like smitten teenagers, the two texted each other constantly — texts that Blatherwick downloaded and later provided to the judge.

“Can't wait to hold you,” Blatherwick wrote on Dec. 7, 2007. “Love You, darling!”

“Love you back!” Hotovy wrote a minute later.

He would text about meetings; she would text about music. Most of the time, they simply traded sweet nothings.

Within a month, Hotovy broke the news: She was pregnant.

“The relationship shifted from one of romance and expressiveness,” Blatherwick said, “to one of, ‘Oh my gosh, we're having a baby.'”

Looking back, Blatherwick said, it's easy to see why he readily accepted the news. He married his first wife after getting her pregnant out of high school. Years later, he got another woman pregnant and married her.

With Hotovy, it was the same song, third verse. But Blatherwick said he was madly in love — and the thought of having a child only deepened his excitement. Soon, Hotovy began texting Blatherwick with updates about Peanut.

“Very strong heartbeat for almost 6 weeks!” Hotovy wrote in early January 2008. She sent along the due date: Aug. 25.

“I am so happy!” Blatherwick replied. “You okay my love?”

“Yes, much rest needed though … Am going to nap … Strong peanut they say”

* * *

On Jan. 29, 2008, Hotovy — a North Platte native who also used her maiden name, Riley, on “Idol” — gathered with husband Craig, family and friends at a west Omaha bar to watch her appearance on “Idol.” She laughed, even got a little choked up, when the show briefly aired footage of Hotovy and her daughter during the Omaha tryouts. Hotovy made it to Hollywood but was not among the final 12 contestants.

Watching the show from his home in suburban Denver, Blatherwick was giddy.

“Cannot wait to hear your song,” he texted Hotovy.

At the time, those gathered at the bar had no idea that Hotovy was claiming to be pregnant with another man's child. And Blatherwick said he had no idea that Peanut might have been a nugget of Hotovy's imagination.

The two continued to see each other in the early months of 2008. But by late March, Hotovy began giving myriad reasons she couldn't see him. Morning sickness. Doctor's orders not to fly.

“Just got back from hospital,” she wrote March 22. “Have anemia and hypotension. Having an amnio later this week to check for any major problems with the baby. Put me on a high salt diet.”

When Blatherwick begged to come visit in early April 2008, Hotovy laid a guilt trip on him.

Hotovy: “You knew that after the (“Idol”) show aired that things were going to be crazy for awhile … You threw a fit yesterday because I could not give you an exact time … I can not fly in airplanes. I am heading to nashville to do some recording and I am going to have to drive 12 hours … you know how ill I am.”

Blatherwick: “I have been trying to see you for almost 3 months. I am not a priority for you. Go do your music, you are wonderful at it.”

Hotovy: “You are such a child. Exactly the reason you will never be allowed to see peanut.”

Within hours, the two would patch things up.

* * *

By May 2008, the exchanges became even more bizarre.

On May 2, Hotovy claimed to be in the hospital, suffering from cramps. She said she wasn't allowed to make phone calls. So the two traded rapid-fire texts.

Hotovy: “We are going to be just fine right?”

Blatherwick: “Yes. Of course we are. What is going on???”

Hotovy: “I'm sick Not doing well”

Blatherwick: “OK. How sick? How is peanut??”

Hotovy: “Gone”

Four minutes passed.

Blatherwick: “God loves us. God loves peanut.”

Devastated, he then texted Hotovy, asking if she was going to have an autopsy on the stillborn. “So small, I don't know if I want him cut up,” Hotovy wrote. “I pushed myself way to hard”

Blatherwick: “Peanut loves you. He would not want you to ever blame yourself.”

And then things really became surreal. Through a series of phone calls, texts and tortured logic over the next day, Blatherwick said, Hotovy explained that the baby hadn't died after all.

Doctors had taken him to the neonatal ICU, where they put him on life support. Everything would be touch and go for days.

“She told me they took it away, did some heroic efforts on the baby,” Blatherwick said. “I remember asking my friend if it was possible to keep a baby alive at 5½ months gestation. He said ‘Oh, yeah, they can do that.'”

For the next two months, Blatherwick said he begged Hotovy to let him visit her and the baby. He said she told him he wasn't allowed in the ICU because her husband's name was on the birth certificate. She also resisted requests for pictures of the child.

“I don't want to jinx anything,” Blatherwick recalled her saying.

* * *

In July 2008, Blatherwick finally drove to Omaha to confront Hotovy.

He pulled up to her house near 190th and B Streets just as she was leaving. He said she rolled down her window and told him to scram, that there was no baby.

“You'll hear from my attorney,” Blatherwick yelled.

Hotovy had a different version of that encounter. She accused Blatherwick of stalking her because she had broken off their relationship and had patched things up with her husband.

Blatherwick said he went to an Omaha attorney the next day and shared his story.

The attorney “looked at me like I was insane,” he said. “All my friends did, too. And I can understand why. All that time, I just kind of hid my head in the sand and accepted what she was saying. And the next thing you know, you're 6 feet under and you don't know what to believe.”

Finally, Blatherwick got ahold of Omaha attorney John Kinney, who helped him sort out the mess. Kinney filed a paternity action to ensure that Hotovy didn't have a newborn.

He then filed a lawsuit, eventually attaching records showing that Blatherwick provided more than $31,000 to Hotovy.

“It was nothing more than a grift, a hustle,” Kinney said. “It takes a certain type of guy to get manipulated like that. He's a pretty sensitive, mild-mannered guy. At that point in his life, he was just weak enough to fall for this woman and her stories.

“It was like she was conducting an orchestra and the instruments were this guy's emotions.”

Hotovy, a homemaker who has talked of pursuing a music career in Nashville, said she was the one getting played. She said she was pregnant but miscarried within two months. And, she said, Blatherwick knew it.

Her attorney, Michael Kratville, said she regrets that she didn't save any pregnancy tests. She also provided no evidence of doctor or hospital visits.

Even so, Hotovy argued that Blatherwick wanted her to be pregnant so he could have reason to divorce his second wife, just as he had his first.

And, she said, he allowed her to use his credit cards as a gift — in part to win her affection and in part to shelter money from his estranged wife. Of the $8,000 he wired into her account, she said she withdrew the cash and gave it back to him.

She and Kratville say they will ask for a new trial because one of their witnesses couldn't testify at the first one. A former girlfriend of Blatherwick would have testified that he came up with the Peanut ruse to get out of his marriage, Kratville said.

Blatherwick called that “absurd” — and said it was ridiculous to suggest that he would try to shelter $31,000 from a $750,000 marital estate.

His attorney, Kinney, asked Hotovy if she had any e-mails or texts to corroborate that Peanut actually was hatched by Blatherwick. She provided none.

Kinney urged the judge to review the 62 pages of texts in which Hotovy detailed her purported pregnancy and the child's birth — texts that included 26 exchanges about Peanut.

Kinney said Hotovy “revived” Peanut in early May because she knew Blatherwick would stop sending her money.

After hearing from both sides, the judge ruled that Hotovy's testimony “was not credible.”

“The court specifically finds that the defendant Jessica Hotovy obtained money by virtue of fraud,” Gleason wrote. “Specifically, the defendant told (Blatherwick) and led him to believe that she was pregnant with his child and that he needed to provide her with financial assistance during the term of her pregnancy. The defendant (Hotovy) was never pregnant and lied to the plaintiff in order to obtain funds from him.”

Contact the writer:

444-1275, todd.cooper@owh.com

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