Kevin Hart’s former friend Jonathan “JT” Jackson is suing the star for allegedly fabricating evidence in his famous 2017 extortion case and breaking a subsequent contract.
According to Jackson’s lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Los Angeles and obtained by Page Six, he and Hart signed a “meticulously negotiated” settlement agreement in July 2021 that explained Hart would “issue a powerful public statement proclaiming [Jackson’s] innocence” in the comedian’s sex tape scandal.
Jackson, 47, claims Hart was supposed to say that “the incident” cost him “a very valuable friendship,” that he “lost someone close” to him whom he “loved,” that he’s “proud to say that all [the] charges against JT Jackson have been dropped” and that Jackson “is not guilty and had nothing to do with it.”
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Instead, in October 2021, Hart took to Instagram to state that Jackson had “been found not guilty” because “those charges have been dropped against him.”
Hart said the situation “put a fork in the road between he and I, and our relationship was lost,” before explaining that he wanted to put it all “behind” him, “move on” and “get back to life.”
Jackson claims Hart failed to “clear [Jackson’s] name unequivocally and restore his reputation.”
Jackson, who is also an actor and comedian, claims he “has sustained enormous difficulties in obtaining acting roles” since the alleged breach of contract.
“Hart’s failure to uphold the contractual obligations has negatively affected [Jackson’s] professional life and financial security,” his complaint alleges.
Though the extortion charges against Jackson were dropped in September 2021, he also claims in the new lawsuit that Hart, 45, fabricated evidence that led to his April 2018 arrest.
According to Jackson, Hart “claimed” to have received an email that same month from someone demanding 20 bitcoins to prevent the release of even more of the sex tape.
The sex tape was recorded in Las Vegas in August 2017 when Hart’s wife, Eniko Hart, was pregnant with their first child together.
The woman in the tape, model Montia Sabbag, sued both Kevin and Jackson — as he was also in Vegas at the time — but her lawsuit was eventually dismissed.
Kevin, for his part, apologized for cheating on Eniko, and the couple went on to welcome baby No. 2.
The aforementioned email was reported to prosecutors by Kevin’s legal team and allegedly cited by a district attorney investigator as a basis for Jackson’s arrest.
Jackson claims in his complaint that forensic experts have determined that the email was “fabricated,” as the copy of it eventually shared by prosecutors was allegedly created in May 2019 using Microsoft Word.
“It was not a genuine email sent on the date claimed,” Jackson’s suit alleges.
Jackson, a Navy veteran, claims in his complaint that Kevin’s alleged actions have also “exacerbated” his service-related post-traumatic stress disorder and “caused significant mental health struggles.”
He is seeking more than $12 million in damages and a trial.
Reps for Kevin did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
