The creator and of “UnWineWithTashaK” and the host of “The Wine Cellar” argues in new court papers that she should be dismissed as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Kevin Hart in which the comedian alleges she and a former personal assistant defamed him in an online interview and attempted to extort money from him.
Attorneys for Latasha Transrina Kebe, who also is known as Tasha K, filed court papers on Monday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly J. Fujie asking that Hart’s claims against Kebe and her husband Cheickna, Kebe’s media company, Yelen Entertainment LLC, for defamation, invasion of privacy, civil extortion and intentional infliction of contractual relations be dismissed under the state’s anti-SLAPP statute.
The anti-SLAPP — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation –law is intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights. A hearing on the motion is scheduled April 11.
The lawsuit filed Dec. 26 involves a social media conversation between Kebe and Hart’s ex-personal assistant, Miesha Shakes. In their court papers, the 44-year-old Hart’s attorneys maintain their client and his company, K. Hart Enterprises Inc., have suffered “irreparable harm from the continued publication and broadcasting of the interview and related content, which includes defamatory statements, including false statements regarding Hart’s supposed criminal conduct, which are damaging to his reputation and thereby to his livelihood as a performer.”
Hart’s lawyers maintain that the comedian and Shakes had a non-disclosure agreement and that Shakes breached that accord, although Shakes maintains that the contract took advantage of her mental state at the time. Hart’s attorneys also contend that Shakes and Kebe sought money in order to keep quiet.
“Defendants initially attempted to extort Hart into paying defendants a ransom to keep them from publishing the interview, which they threatened would include private and damaging information about plaintiffs,” Hart’s attorneys’ court papers state. “When Hart declined to pay that ransom, defendants followed through on their threat and proceeded to publish the interview.”
But in a sworn declaration submitted in support of her anti-SLAPP motion, Kebe says that in a teaser for her interview she explained that Shakes was no longer employed by Hart and that she joked, “When you don’t pay, we have to get money by any means necessary.”
Kebe further says that in making the remark she “intended to make clear to my audience that my programs rely on informational tips from and interviews with former assistant like Shakes. I did not intend any other meaning.”
Kebe’s comment about having to “get money by any means necessary” was a “breezy, sarcastic remark in response to Shakes’ claim in the Interview that Hart had not paid her some portion of funds owed,” according to Kebe.
Kebe also denied Hart’s accusation that she or anyone acting on her behalf called a representative of the comedian offering to not air the interview in exchange for $250,000. Kebe also said she did not know of any non-disclosure agreement Shakes had with Hart.
Kebe said that given the number of years Shakes worked for Hart, she believed the statement Shakes made were accurate.
” I did not believe there was a serious likelihood that any of those factual assertions were false,” Kebe said.