A former friend of Kevin Hart has 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 alleging that investigators accepted the evidence and acted upon it without proper vetting.
In an amended complaint filed Aug. 6 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Jonathan “J.T.” Jackson — who sued the “Get Hard” star in July for breach of written contract — further alleged that Hart and the D.A.’s office contributed to false extortion accusations against him that hurt his reputation.
Representatives for Hart did not immediately respond to The Times’ requests for comment.
Jonathan “J.T.” 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 relating to the fallout from Hart’s 2017 scandal. He accused Hart of not using the “meticulously negotiated” and agreed-upon wording from their 2021 settlement when Hart addressed the scandal in an Instagram post that same year, resulting in July’s $12-million breach of written contract lawsuit that Jackson updated last week.
Jackson’s amended complaint includes a transcript of a 2017 interview of Hart by D.A.’s investigator Robin Letourneau said to confirm “multiple key points” that refute the claims made against Jackson and show that Hart allegedly instigated criminal extortion charges that led to Jackson’s arrest.
The amended complaint said that Hart and his legal team “fabricated evidence and provided misleading statements that contributed and led to [Jackson’s] wrongful implication and arrest.” According to the original complaint, the alleged evidence was an April 2018 email addressed to Hart by someone identified as Juan Carlos Yépez, who demanded 20 bitcoins to prevent the tape’s release (after the tape had been released eight months earlier). The email, a copy of which is included in the complaint, also included accusations of molestation and attempted rape.
Jackson, 47, was the target of a January 2018 raid at his home in which he and his wife were held at gunpoint by investigators with the district attorney’s office. Investigators were looking into allegations of extortion in the raid, which Jackson believes Hart’s allegations instigated. Jackson was arrested a few months later, and the complaint said a voice recording made during his arrest captured Letourneau “specifically stating that Plaintiff was responsible for the extortion email that Hart allegedly received on April 27, 2018.”
Jackson claimed in his lawsuit that the extortion report hinged on the email, and he argued that it had not been properly authenticated, although Hart claimed to have forwarded it to his legal team, which then forwarded it to the D.A. But the email lacked forwarding headers and other digital markers, leading Jackson to believe that it was potentially fabricated, according to the lawsuit. However, Jackson alleged, investigators were expected to further scrutinize and verify the digital evidence but allegedly did not and the email was still used to prosecute him.
“The District Attorney’s blanket 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 said.
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said Friday that the office did not comment on pending litigation.
Jackson, who also goes by “Action Jackson,” was charged in May 2018 with attempting to extort money from Hart after claiming to have a secret video of the comedian engaging in extramarital sex in Las Vegas in August 2017. The charges were eventually dropped by prosecutors (whom Jackson also sued in December), but Jackson claimed that his “reputation was unjustly tarnished due to a series of malicious actions by the defendants,” including when Hart released the 2019 Netflix docuseries “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 D.A. 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 no one else was in his private bedroom within his suite on the night of the sex tape recording except Sabbag and another female friend, identified as Morgan in the lawsuit.
“Hart emphasizes that no one else had access to his room,” the amended complaint said. “Hart states he was discombobulated and not in control of his actions but implies that Sabbag was aware of the camera’s placement. Hart suggests Sabbag knew where to position herself and Hart to be recorded.”
In the Sept. 18, 2017, interview transcript, 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 do the drug.
“F— it, I said, and I put it in my drink,” Hart said in the D.A. interview, which is included in the complaint. “I had some water there. It was watered down. Because it’s in my drink, I’m fine. I’m fine with drinking. The night is good. As the night goes, I’m now with the girl Montia at the end of the night.”
Hart said that he did not have sex with Sabbag that night, but had sex with her the next morning when he “woke up to sexual activity.” That’s when he realized she was trying to get closer to the hidden camera that recorded the sex tape, although he noted that he never felt Sabbag leave the bed.
Hart also mentioned that his friends, including Jackson, were downstairs in his suite for about only 10 minutes and that his private bedroom was upstairs. That claim contradicts “any implication that [Jackson] had an opportunity to place or manipulate the camera.” Hart also noted that Sabbag and Morgan were the only people who could have taken pictures or been involved in the recording or have access to Hart’s private bedroom upstairs in the suite, “strengthening the claim that Plaintiff was not involved,” the complaint said.
“I am a calculated guy. And I know how to maneuver. There’s no way, there’s no way that I can [be] videotaped sleeping in bed with somebody else in the room with me not having knowledge of a person in the room,” Hart said in interview, adding that he “100%” believes that it was all “calculated” by Sabbag during the time he was sleeping in bed by himself.
Hart also explained how he later learned about the sex tape being “shopped” around to celebrity media outlets, indicating a focus on selling the tape rather than extortion, the complaint said.
Hart stated that he was “informed” about the video by a person from Media Take Out, not directly by the purported seller, “highlighting that he was not directly contacted or threatened or extorted,” according to the lawsuit. He was told that the tape would not “come cheap” and that it 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 said that Hart’s representatives engaged in this alleged negotiation and that the seller of the sex tape had no idea that he or she was negotiating with Hart’s representatives. The actor-comedian, a seller identified in the documents as a “Hollywood Sex Tape Broker” named Kevin Blatt and Fred Mwangaguhunga from Media Take Out negotiated a price for the recording, “reinforcing the transactional nature of the interaction,” the complaint alleged.
In a Friday statement to The Times, Mwangaguhunga,, said that neither he nor Media Take Out “has ever engaged in any negotiation for a sex tape.”
“That is illegal. We were approached by a person looking to sell a purported video of Kevin Hart, and we immediately notified his representatives. Weeks later, law enforcement asked us for a copy of the email solicitation and we provided it,” Mwangaguhungasaid. “To be clear, it is not true that I, or any representative of Media Take Out, solicited or entered into any business agreement over an illegal video. It is also not true that either I, or anyone at Media Take Out, have ever acted as a representative for Kevin Hart in any negotiation.”
Blatt told The Times on Friday that he was contacted to buy the tape but was never told who the seller was.
Letourneau confirmed under oath at a Sept. 23, 2019, preliminary hearing that the interaction between all parties “was seen as a business deal and not extortion,” Jackson’s amended complaint said. “This detailed evidence collectively shows that Hart was involved in a negotiation over the sale of the video, not extorted, which is extremely crucial for understanding the legal and public perception of the incident.”
After that fated Las Vegas trip, Hart met with Sabbag in Los Angeles, which further contradicts Hart’s “claims and narrative of being a victim of any crime committed,” the complaint said.
“Additionally, officials named 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 upon the fabricated evidence without proper investigation and verification. The media then sensationalized these false accusations against [Jackson], further damaging his reputation,” the amended complaint said.
“[Jackson] was wrongfully accused of extorting Hart using the sex tape, leading to significant social and professional fallout. This forced [Jackson] to navigate the legal system and endure hostile public opinion.”
Jackson’s lawsuit initially accused Hart and his co-defendants — Hartbeat LLC and several individuals 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 the inducement, malicious prosecution and defamation. Jackson claimed that the fabricated evidence and fraudulent actions induced him to enter into the contract with Hart, one he argued “was seemingly designed to mitigate the fallout from the fabricated accusations” against him.
In addition to $12 million, Jackson is seeking punitive damages to be determined at trial, legal costs and fees and injunctions requiring the defendants to exonerate him, as well as the removal of “all the false statements” about him in Hart’s 2019 Netflix docuseries.