Tennis Ref’s Daughter Calls Affair Accusations ‘Completely Made Up’
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Comstock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The family of Lois Goodman, the U.S. Open tennis referee charged with killing her husband with a coffee cup, has denied that she was having an affair at the time of his death, calling the accusation “completely made up.”
After Goodman passed a polygraph test organized by her attorneys and administered by retired FBI agent Jack Trimarco, her daughter told ABC News that accusations made by investigators that Goldman was having an affair are false.
“There was no affair. It was completely made up,” her daughter, Allison Goodman Rogers, said.
Goodman’s attorney, Alison Triessl, told ABC News that she was not asked about an affair during the polygraph because it was a “non-essential” question.
“The question was whether or not she murdered her husband, and the answer was no,” Triessl said.
Goodman, 70, was arrested in New York City days before the U.S. Open in August, still wearing her referee uniform. The lawyers and family of the grandmother and esteemed line judge, who has overseen matches between some of the most famous tennis players in the world, have since launched an aggressive legal and public relations campaign to clear her name.
Goodman called police on April 17 and told officers she arrived home and found her husband, Alan Frederick Goodman, 80, dead at the bottom of the stairs, said Lt. David Storaker, the chief of detectives at the LAPD’s Topanga station.
“She surmised that he must have had a heart attack and fallen down the stairs,” Storaker told ABC News earlier this year.
Officers concluded that there was no sign of forced entry, and Goodman’s statements seemed suspicious, so they investigated further, Storaker said.
The Los Angeles Country Coroner ruled on Aug. 2 that the man’s death was a homicide. The cause of death was multiple injuries to the head, Storaker said. He was killed with a coffee cup, according to the arrest warrant.
Goodman is now out on bail, confined to her home. Her daughter says that she is still in shock.
“They’ve been depicting my mom as this cold-blooded person, and it couldn’t be further from the truth,” she said. “She has a huge heart, and everything that’s been in the press has been very negative. It’s not her.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio