WATCH ABOVE: Mike Duffy is already facing criminal charges, but now he’s dealing with a personal matter from his past. A Peruvian woman says she is his daughter and says she’s going to court to try to prove it. Mike Le Couteur reports.
TORONTO – After calling the initial revelations untrue, Mike Duffy now says his relationship with a Peruvian woman who claims to be his daughter is a “private matter and no one’s business.”
On Wednesday, the lawyer for Karen Duffy, a 32-year-old woman from Peru, said the embattled senator and his alleged daughter spoke on Facebook and by phone via FaceTime.
“Her reaction was one of happiness,” Karen Duffy’s lawyer told Global News.
In an email asking to verify whether he’d spoken with Karen Duffy or if he believes she is his daughter, Duffy replied: “This is a private matter and no one’s business.”
Speaking to Global News from Lima, Peru, Karen Duffy said she is “convinced” the former broadcaster-turned-suspended Conservative senator is her father.
“I’m convinced he is my dad,” Karen Duffy said in Spanish.
“I look at him, and I see myself. And my mom says ‘he’s your dad.’ And I always knew it. And I always see myself in his photo.”
Last week, Maclean’s magazine reported that Karen Duffy’s mother, Yvette Benites, had an affair with Duffy and became pregnant after doing time at the Kingston Penitentiary for Women for importing drugs.
Benites was deported back to Peru where she gave birth to her daughter, the magazine said.
WATCH: Karen Duffy speaks to Global News
For years, Karen Duffy said she researched her father and tried to contact him. He never replied, she said.
Karen Duffy filed a complaint in Peruvian court seeking to have Duffy recognize her as his child.
“What it means is that he recognizes my rights as his daughter. And that he signs the paper. That he says ‘Karen Duffy is also my daughter.’ That he submits DNA proof if he has any doubt,” Karen Duffy said.
“I have a father, and this dad, his name is Mike Duffy.”
The mother of three added that she is not interested in citizenship or money, and she is happy living in Peru.
After the Maclean’s story was published, Duffy said it contained “untrue allegations, made by a convicted narcotics smuggler, and which go back more than 30 years.”
“I will respond to any legal process from Peru in an appropriate manner. I will have no further comment,” he said in an email last week.
Only two days after the Maclean’s report, Duffy was charged by the RCMP with 31 offences, including fraud, breach of trust and bribery. The charges relate to his Senate expenses as well as a $65,000 consulting contract, and more than $90,000 he received from former chief of staff Nigel Wright.
Duffy has denied criminal wrongdoing and said he is looking forward to telling his story in court.
READ MORE: Senate refuses to divulge Duffy’s allegedly criminal expense claims
As for Karen Duffy, she said her alleged father has never explicitly said that he doesn’t want to be part of her life.
“He never told me ‘You know what, I don’t want to have any link whatsoever to you,’” she said.
“The day he tells me that, not in writing or through his lawyer, but that he tells me this face to face, that’s the day that I’ll know ‘OK, at least I know.’”
She said she simply wants to meet – and hug – the man who has been missing from her life for more than three decades.
“I just want him to know that here in Lima, he’s got a 32-year-old daughter, and that he’s got three granddaughters, and that I’m waiting, whenever he is ready, whenever he wants to come, whenever he wants to know me.”
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