A $60 million lawsuit recently filed against Kevin Hart in federal court in Los Angeles in connection with a 2017 sex tape scandal has been dismissed, court documents indicate.
Montia Sabbag filed the suit earlier this month, alleging that Hart and several other defendants allowed a sexual encounter with the Philadelphia-born comic in a Las Vegas hotel room to be filmed without her knowledge or consent. In the original complaint, Sabbag, who appeared in a sex tape that sparked an extortion scandal two years ago, accused Hart of charges including invasion of privacy, infliction of emotional distress and negligence in the suit.
A judge, however, has thrown out the suit over technical legal issues.
Specifically, the issues with the complaint come down to the way in which Sabbag defined the website Fameolous, a defendant in the case that published the sex tape online, as if it was a corporation, instead of a limited liability company.
Court documents indicate that Sabbag has until Sept. 30 to file an amended complaint.
In her original complaint, Sabbag alleged that her life had been "turned upside down" over the sex tape and its ensuing scandal, claiming that she "continues to suffer from substantial emotion distress on a daily basis" over the situation. Additionally, she claimed that Hart knew the sexual encounter was being filmed, and planned to use publicity from the scandal to "promote his Irresponsible Tour," and reap "tremendous financial benefit for himself," as well as "increase his overall pop culture status."
At the time that the scandal broke, Hart said he was being extorted over the tape. Sabbag denied she was behind the plot to extort Hart, saying in a news conference with attorney Lisa Bloom that she "had nothing to do with these recordings," and was "not an extortionist. Hart's friend Jonathan Todd Jackson, who is also a defendant in Sabbag's complaint, was later charged with extortion over the incident, and pleaded not guilty last year, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Hart publicly apologized to his wife, Eniko, at the time, saying that he made a "bad error in judgment" that resulted in his sexual encounter with Sabbag.
"I put myself in a bad environment where only bad things can happen, and they did," Hart said. "And in doing that, I know that I'm going to hurt the people closest to me, who I talked to and apologized to. That would be my wife and kids."
Hart is currently recovering from a serious back injury that he sustained in a car crash in California earlier this month. As of last week, TMZ reports, Hart is out of the hospital and back home, where he is undergoing regular physical therapy sessions.
