Kevin Hart publicly confronted a sex tape, infidelity, and potential extortion plot against him in 2017. In 2018, JT Jackson - his friend of 15 years - was arrested and charged with extortion. However, a judge dropped Jackson's extortion charges a year later due to insufficient evidence.
In an interview with Comedy Hype, Jackson broke his silence and maintained his innocence in an attempt to clear his name. In the opening clip, Jackson spoke about his initial reaction to Kevin Hart's sex scandal and said he was disappointed in his former friend.
Upon finding out that he was being accused of extorting Hart, he found it odd that no conversation occurred between him and his comedian friend considering their long, close friendship.
"If you thought I did something to you, and we're [close], and these accusations that they're accusing me - your boy for 15 years - and you don't want to sit down and talk to me, brother?" Jackson asked while acknowledging Kevin Hart's lawyers and management team likely advised him to avoid speaking about the scandal.
In the above clip, Jackson's lawyer joined the discussion to provide more details and context to the case. The attorney also stated that the extortion story was made up to take attention away from Hart's infidelity.
"This started out as a man who cheated on his pregnant wife on her birthday weekend in Vegas," said attorney Jacob Glucksman. "That's how this story was run for a long time and Kevin's team was successful in shifting that narrative to Kevin being the victim of something that happened in Las Vegas."
Glucksman later added, "What Kevin Hart did in Las Vegas, that was a bad move on his part. That was a mistake on his part. But, what happened was, was that Kevin got together a team of very powerful and well-known attorneys, together with his agents, managers, what have you, and they basically concocted a story to make Kevin look like the victim in the case."
Jackson and his lawyer also reacted to it quietly being reported that the extortion charges were dropped and expressed their confidence that Jackson will be cleared of the remaining charges.
"Kevin Hart, I wish him well. He made a mistake that weekend," Glucksman said. "But for him to make himself a victim of a crime that never happened, that's not okay. I think when it boils down to it, we're going to have twelve people sitting in a jury box that [are] going to agree with that evidence."
Jackson is currently facing two felony counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and one felony count of attempted concealing and selling of stolen property. Watch the clip of Jackson and his attorney above.
