Taylor's pregnancy test negative
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By Marc Stein

Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki was informed Friday that his former fiancée, who was recently sentenced to five years in prison for a probation violation in Missouri, is not pregnant as she has maintained for months.

Nowitzki is in South Africa this week as part of the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program and could not be reached for comment.

But Robert Hart, Nowitzki's Dallas-based lawyer, said via phone that a pregnancy test given to Crista Taylor which they had sought through a July court order has been confirmed as negative.

"As we suspected from the start, we did not believe that she was pregnant and now that has been confirmed," Hart said.

The test, ordered July 24 by Dallas family court Associate Judge Randall Grubbs, was administered in Missouri. Hart on Friday received the documentation confirming that Taylor is not pregnant.

"Good news on Dirk's ex," Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said via his Twitter feed Thursday afternoon. "No surprise. Can't wait [for] training camp."

Within two weeks of her May 6 arrest at Nowitzki's Dallas home, Taylor told The Dallas Morning News in a phone interview that she was "pregnant and alone and broke," insisting that Nowitzki was the father.

On Thursday, Taylor's Texas-based attorney, Scott Renick, told ESPN's John Barr: "I don't know if she miscarried, I don't know if she was never pregnant, I just don't know and I may never know."

Taylor received her five-year sentence Aug. 23 but was given credit for one year of probation, reducing the sentence to four years. Her Missouri-based attorney, Matthew Fry, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Taylor will also receive credit for the 100-plus days she spent in jail waiting for trial in her current case.

The 38-year-old was taken into custody while the Mavericks flew back from Denver after a Game 2 loss to the Nuggets in a second-round series Dallas eventually lost 4-1. A private investigation into Taylor's past, as part of a prenuptial agreement urged by Nowitzki's advisers, revealed outstanding arrest warrants for Taylor in two states and her reported use of more than 20 aliases.

Nowitzki acknowledged in multiple interviews this offseason in his native Germany that he knew the St. Louis native as "Crissy Travino," with Taylor claiming to be of Brazilian heritage.

"In the beginning, I was very down and disappointed, sad and furious," Nowitzki told Bild Magazine in June. "But I made a few steps forward, and I think someday I will be over it totally."

The off-court turmoil didn't prevent Nowitzki -- who will report to training camp in October for his 12th NBA season after turning 31 in June -- from averaging 34.4 points and 11.6 rebounds against the Nuggets as Dallas' only consistent threat during the five-game series.

In her court appearance last week, Taylor admitted that she failed to check in with her Missouri-based probation officer in a decade-old forgery and theft case. She also admitted to being arrested twice in Texas in 2000 for misdemeanors, after pleading guilty in 1999 in Missouri to two counts of forgery and two counts of felony stealing which landed her on probation.

Taylor remains incarcerated in St. Charles, Mo. She did not mention being pregnant in a four-page letter dated July 20 to Circuit Judge Nancy Schneider seeking leniency.

"I was engaged to a great man," Taylor wrote to Schneider, referring to Nowitzki but not mentioning him by name. "I paid the ultimate price for my past.

"When I got arrested at our home and the media got a hold of my story, the love of my life left me. I can't say I blame him. It's not like I was worthy of him giving me a chance."