This is a story about parenthood, the aftermath of sexual abuse and a young man driven by a burning question: Is his brother also his son?
Logan Gifford was born in 1998. He was about to turn 11 when his brother was born in 2009. He was 17 when a judge ordered his mother, Doreene Gifford, to serve an 8-to-20-year prison sentence and register as a sex offender.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal is withholding his 15-year-old brother’s name because he is a juvenile and because of the sensitive nature of the subject matter.
“Look at the mess that I’m left with,” Logan Gifford said. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I was a child when all of this happened and yet now I’m responsible for picking up the pieces of something that really is still continuing to have an impact in my life and dragging me to deal with that. I feel that as though it is my obligation or my duty to (him) to do this and find out who his biological father really is.”
To that end, the Las Vegas man has filed what his attorney, Timothy Treffinger, described as a paternity petition. The Family Court case is sealed, but Treffinger said Doreene Gifford has denied that Logan Gifford is the father and expressed willingness to have a paternity test.
Criminal case
Logan Gifford, 26 and the oldest of four brothers, said he “did not have a real traditional childhood.” He was exposed to drug use as a small child, he said, and his family had five cases with child protective services. His youngest brother, Liam, died at age 3 in 2013 after drowning in a pool and spending months in what was essentially a vegetative state, he said.
Late one night, when most of the family was asleep, Logan Gifford’s mother brought him into the bedroom she shared with his father, he testified at a 2015 preliminary hearing. There was a pornographic video on the TV, and she began to sexually abuse him, he alleged in court.
Another instance of sexual abuse occurred around late 2008, he said at the hearing, around the time his brother would have been conceived. Additional acts of sexual abuse followed over the next few years, until about 2014, according to Logan Gifford’s testimony.
A disclosure to a therapist led to the criminal case, Logan Gifford said.
Doreene Gifford entered a type of guilty plea, known as an Alford plea, to counts of attempted sexual assault and attempted lewdness with a child under 14. In an Alford plea, a defendant admits only that prosecutors have enough evidence for a conviction.
Her public defender wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Logan Gifford had animosity for his mother, who maintained her innocence. The filing also claimed there were inconsistencies in his version of what happened.
The memo said Doreene Gifford had a difficult life with a theme of abuse: abuse by parents who went to prison, abuse in the foster case system, abuse in her marriage, and abuse of drugs, particularly methamphetamine.
According to the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners, Doreene Gifford was released on parole in July but arrested in January after violating a condition that she have no victim contact. A parole violation hearing is set for April but will be moot as her sentence expires this month, according to Katie Fraker, the board’s executive secretary.
Logan Gifford said his mother attempted to contact him through a third party and tried to friend one of his brothers on Facebook.
Doreene Gifford is listed as an inmate at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center and did not respond to a request for comment sent via the prison system’s email service.
‘No going back’
It was a therapist who suggested to Logan Gifford that his brother might be his son.
“I was 17 at the time,” he said. “That threw me for a loop.”
His brother receives a Social Security disability check, Logan Gifford said, and was living with Theodore Gifford, Logan Gifford’s father, until January, when he began living with Logan.
Theodore Gifford did not respond to requests for comment.
Treffinger said that if it turns out that Logan Gifford is the father, his Family Court case will be a custody matter. If he’s not, it will turn into a guardianship case.
According to the attorney, Logan Gifford currently has temporary guardianship of his brother.
Treffinger believes there is a strong chance his client is the teen’s father but said determining paternity is more of a challenge in this case since Logan Gifford and his brother would both have Theodore Gifford’s DNA, whether or not Logan Gifford is the teen’s father.
He hopes the Family Court will order a lab test to provide clarity.
Logan Gifford said he lives with his wife and stepdaughter, in addition to his teen brother.
He’s earned his associate’s degree in secondary education from the College of Southern Nevada, he said, and has worked on political issues. He said he recently started a job as an account executive at a marketing company and serves as executive director of Repair the Vote, a political action committee that successfully pushed for Voter ID requirements in Nevada.
David Gibbs, president of Repair the Vote, said Logan Gifford is knowledgeable and a hard worker with an inspiring story.
“It would be very easy to become a victim, and he has chosen not to be,” Gibbs said.
Moving forward, Logan Gifford said he intends to care for his brother, regardless of the DNA test results.
“To sit here and say that my brother may be the product of my sexual assault is a very visceral thing to think about as a male survivor,” he said. “But he’s here now. There’s no going back and undoing anything. And he deserves to have a quality of life where he’s comfortable, where he can be a kid.”
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.