A former friend of Kevin Hart accused Hart in a lawsuit of submitting fabricated evidence to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office stemming from his 2017 sex tape scandal, and alleged that investigators accepted the evidence and acted on it without proper investigation.
In an amended complaint filed Aug. 6 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Jonathan “JT” Jackson, who sued the “Get Hard” star in July for breach of written contract, further alleged that Hart and the district attorney's office contributed to false extortion allegations against him that damaged his reputation.
Representatives for Hart did not immediately respond to The Times' requests for comment.
Jonathan “JT” Jackson, left, a Navy veteran, professional bowler and actor, has updated his lawsuit against comedian Kevin Hart.
(Arnold Turner/Chris Pizzello/Associated Press)
Jackson, a Navy veteran, professional bowler and actor, sued Hart for allegedly botching a settlement agreement meant to clear Jackson’s name in connection with the fallout from Hart’s 2017 scandal. He accused Hart of failing to use the “meticulously negotiated” and agreed-upon wording of their 2021 settlement when Hart addressed the scandal in an Instagram post that same year, resulting in the $12 million breach of written contract lawsuit from July that Jackson updated last week.
Jackson's amended complaint includes a transcript of a 2017 interview with Hart conducted by district attorney investigator Robin Letourneau that it says confirms “multiple key points” that refute the allegations made against Jackson and show that Hart allegedly instigated criminal racketeering charges that led to Jackson's arrest.
The amended complaint said Hart and his legal team “fabricated evidence and provided misleading statements that contributed to and led to [Jackson’s] “Wrongful indictment and arrest.” According to the original complaint, the alleged evidence was an April 2018 email to Hart from someone identified as Juan Carlos Yepez, who demanded 20 bitcoins to prevent the tape from being released (after the tape had been released eight months earlier). The email, a copy of which is included in the complaint, also included allegations of sexual assault and attempted rape.
Jackson, 47, was the subject of a home raid in January 2018, in which he and his wife were held at gunpoint by investigators from the district attorney’s office. Investigators were looking into allegations of extortion in the raid, which Jackson believes were instigated by Hart’s allegations. Jackson was arrested a few months later, and the complaint said a voice recording made during his arrest captured Letourneau “specifically stating that the plaintiff was responsible for the extortion email Hart allegedly received on April 27, 2018.”
Jackson claimed in his lawsuit that the extortion report relied on the email and argued that it had not been properly authenticated, though Hart claimed to have forwarded it to his legal team, who then forwarded it to the district attorney. However, the email lacked forwarding headers and other digital markers, leading Jackson to believe it was possibly fabricated, according to the lawsuit. However, Jackson alleged that investigators were expected to further examine and verify the digital evidence, but allegedly failed to do so and the email was still used to prosecute him.
“The district attorney’s absolute reliance on Hart’s authentication, despite clear discrepancies, raises significant doubts about the validity of the evidence and the thoroughness of its verification,” the lawsuit states.
A spokesman for the district attorney's office said Friday that the office does not comment on pending litigation.
Jackson, who also goes by the stage name “Action Jackson,” was charged in May 2018 with attempting to extort Hart after claiming he had a secret video of the comedian having extramarital sex in Las Vegas in August 2017. The charges were eventually dropped by prosecutors (whom Jackson also sued in December), but Jackson claimed his “reputation was unfairly tarnished due to a series of malicious actions by the defendants,” including as Hart released the 2019 Netflix documentary series “Don't F— This Up.” In the series, Hart mentioned extortion and alleged that Jackson had been involved in the creation and dissemination of the sex tape. Jackson was later cleared of all charges brought against him by the district attorney. A $60 million lawsuit filed by Montia Sabbag, the model who appeared with Hart in the sex tape, was dismissed in 2020.
Hart told Letourneau that there was no one else in his private bedroom inside his suite the night of the sex tape recording except for Sabbag and another friend, identified as Morgan in the lawsuit.
“Hart emphasizes that no one else had access to his room,” the amended complaint says. “Hart claims he was bewildered and not in control of his actions, but implies that Sabbag was aware of the camera’s location. Hart suggests that Sabbag knew where to position herself and Hart to be recorded.”
In the transcript of the Sept. 18, 2017 interview, the “Jumanji” and “Die Hart” star also admitted to taking the hallucinogenic drug Molly, claiming that a friend, whose identity he did not reveal, pressured him to take the drug.
“F–k it, I said, and I put it in my drink,” Hart said in the interview with the prosecutor, which is included in the complaint. “I had a little bit of water in there. It was watered down. Since it’s in my drink, I’m fine. I’m fine drinking. The night is good. As the night goes on, I’m now with the Montia girl at the end of the night.”
Hart said he did not have sex with Sabbag that night, but did have sex with her the next morning when she “woke up to sexual activity.” That’s when he realized she was trying to get close to the hidden camera that recorded the sex tape, though he noted that he never felt Sabbag get out of bed.
Hart also mentioned that his friends, including Jackson, were downstairs in his suite for about 10 minutes and that his private bedroom was upstairs. That statement contradicts “any implication that [Jackson] had the opportunity to place or manipulate the camera.” Hart also noted that Sabbag and Morgan were the only people who could have taken photographs or participated in the recording or had access to Hart’s private bedroom upstairs in the suite, “which strengthens Plaintiff’s claim that he was not involved,” the complaint said.
“I'm a calculating guy and I know how to maneuver. There's no way, there's no way I can… [be] “I was filmed sleeping in bed with another person in the room without me being aware that there was a person in the room,” Hart said in an interview, adding that he “100%” believes it was all “calculated” by Sabbag during the time he was sleeping alone in the bed.
Hart also explained how he later learned the sex tape was being “sold” to prominent media outlets, indicating a focus on selling the video rather than extortion, according to the complaint.
Hart claimed he was “informed” about the video by a person at Media Take Out, not directly by the purported seller, “emphasizing that he was not directly contacted or threatened or extorted,” according to the suit. He was told the tape would not be “cheap” and could ruin his career, “framing it as a sales pitch and business deal rather than a direct threat… supporting that it was a negotiation to sell the video, not extortion.”
The complaint claims that Hart's representatives were involved in this alleged negotiation and that the seller of the sex tape had no idea he was negotiating with Hart's representatives. The actor and comedian, a seller identified in the documents as a “Hollywood sex tape broker” named Kevin Blatt, and Fred Mwangaguhunga of Media Take Out negotiated a price for the recording, “reinforcing the transactional nature of the interaction,” according to the complaint.
In a statement to The Times on Friday, Mwangaguhunga said neither he nor Media Take Out “have ever been involved in any negotiations over a sex tape.”
“That is illegal. An individual approached us to sell a purported Kevin Hart video, and we immediately notified his representatives. Weeks later, law enforcement asked us for a copy of the request via email, and we provided it to them,” Mwangaguhung said. “To be clear, it is not true that I, or any representative of Media Take Out, ever solicited or entered into any business arrangement regarding an illegal video. It is also not true that I, or anyone at Media Take Out, ever acted as a representative of Kevin Hart in any negotiations.”
Blatt told The Times on Friday that he was contacted about purchasing the tape but was never told who the seller was.
Letourneau confirmed under oath at a preliminary hearing on Sept. 23, 2019, that the interaction between all parties “was considered a business arrangement and not extortion,” according to Jackson’s amended complaint. “This detailed evidence collectively shows that Hart was involved in a negotiation regarding the sale of the video, not that he was extorted, which is extremely crucial to understanding the legal and public perception of the incident.”
Following that fateful trip to Las Vegas, Hart met up with Sabbag in Los Angeles, further contradicting Hart’s “claims and narrative of being the victim of any crimes committed,” the complaint says.
“In addition, the officials appointed in [the complaint]including members of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, contributed to the false accusations against [Jackson] By accepting and acting on fabricated evidence without proper investigation and verification, the media then spread these false accusations against [Jackson]“further damaging his reputation,” the amended complaint said.
“[Jackson] He was wrongly accused of extorting Hart using the sex tape, which caused him significant social and professional consequences. This forced [Jackson] “navigating the legal system and enduring hostile public opinion.”
Jackson’s lawsuit initially accused Hart and his co-defendants — Hartbeat LLC and several people identified as John or Jane Doe — only of breach of written contract, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, but the amended complaint updated the allegations to include fraud in inducement, malicious prosecution and defamation. Jackson claimed that fabricated evidence and fraudulent actions induced him to enter into the contract with Hart, which he said was “ostensibly designed to mitigate the consequences of the fabricated allegations” against him.
In addition to $12 million, Jackson is seeking punitive damages to be determined at trial, legal costs and fees, and court orders requiring the defendants to exonerate him, as well as the removal of “all false statements” about him in Hart’s 2019 Netflix documentary series.
