WEBVTT
1
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:12.439
Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Garrett Fisher and this
2
00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:15.919
is Daily Crime Injustice for Tuesday, June second, twenty twenty six.
3
00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:19.640
I want to start this morning with a word people
4
00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:22.879
throw around when a famous man's business starts coming apart.
5
00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:26.719
The word is loyalty. We're going to talk about Kevin
6
00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:30.079
Hart today, about the lawsuits piling up at his company,
7
00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:33.119
about the people he laid off, and about a former
8
00:00:33.159 --> 00:00:35.920
assistant who stood next to him through the worst scandals
9
00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:38.359
of his career and has now written a book about
10
00:00:38.359 --> 00:00:41.600
what she saw. And the question underneath all of it
11
00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:44.920
is simple. When the cameras are off, who gets protected
12
00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:49.119
and who gets blamed. Then we go to California, where
13
00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:53.439
a case I find genuinely infuriating just collapsed, and not
14
00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:58.000
because anyone decided the defendant was innocent. A dermatologist accused
15
00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:01.079
of pouring drain cleaner into her own husband drinks, walked
16
00:01:01.079 --> 00:01:03.439
out of an Orange County courtroom on Friday with her
17
00:01:03.479 --> 00:01:07.879
indictment thrown out not on the merits on a technicality,
18
00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:11.519
the prosecution handed the defense for free. We'll talk about
19
00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:13.879
how that happens and what it means for a man
20
00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:16.599
who says he was being poisoned in his own kitchen.
21
00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:19.239
And then we come back to a name we've been
22
00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:24.560
carrying on this show since November, Anna Kepner, eighteen years old,
23
00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:28.040
found dead under a bed on a Carnival cruise ship.
24
00:01:28.599 --> 00:01:31.519
We brought you her story when it was still a mystery,
25
00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:35.200
we brought you the indictment in April, and last week
26
00:01:35.239 --> 00:01:38.760
in a Miami federal courtroom, prosecutors stood up and described
27
00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:42.040
in detail what they say her sixteen year old stepbrother
28
00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:44.599
did to her, and then a judge had to decide
29
00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:46.920
whether that young man gets to keep sleeping at home
30
00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:50.120
until his trial. A quick warning before we get there.
31
00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:55.000
That segment includes descriptions of sexual assault. If you've got
32
00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:57.680
little ears in the car, this is your head's up.
33
00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:01.799
Three cases, one through line. Look, I'm going to be
34
00:02:01.879 --> 00:02:04.439
honest with you. Every one of these stories is about
35
00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:07.319
the same thing. It's about who the system protects when
36
00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:15.080
the stakes get high. Let's get into it. Kevin Hart
37
00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:17.360
is one of the hardest working men in show business.
38
00:02:17.560 --> 00:02:21.120
Nobody disputes that fourteen projects in the pipeline by his
39
00:02:21.159 --> 00:02:25.560
own count. He hosts, he produces, he stars, he sells
40
00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:29.039
out arenas so when his own production company starts looking
41
00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:32.080
like a sinking ship, the natural question is, how does
42
00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:35.199
that happen to a guy who never stops working. Let's
43
00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:39.560
lay out the facts. Heartbeat is Heart's production company. Late
44
00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:43.360
last year, it partnered with Authentic Brands Group, a licensing
45
00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:47.639
and marketing operation, in a deal that, according to former employees,
46
00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:51.360
some staff warned could be quote the beginning of the
47
00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:55.599
end of Heartbeat. Around the same time the layoff started.
48
00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:59.680
Reports of twelve employees let go in December, and then
49
00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:04.159
in February, Heartbeat went on the offensive. It sued two
50
00:03:04.280 --> 00:03:09.879
former employees, Eric Eddings and Leslie Guam, alleging breach of contract,
51
00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:15.120
unfair business practices, and misappropriation of trade secrets. Here's the
52
00:03:15.159 --> 00:03:20.520
company's theory. According to reporting from TMZ, Heartbeat claims Eddings
53
00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:25.680
and Guam had access to confidential and proprietary information, financial data,
54
00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:30.479
partnership strategies, business plans for the company's audio and podcast division,
55
00:03:31.159 --> 00:03:33.120
and that they were going to use it to launch
56
00:03:33.159 --> 00:03:36.919
their own competing podcast venture. Heartbeat asked a court for
57
00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:40.639
an injunction to stop them. Eddings and Guam pushed back hard.
58
00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:44.199
They say there's no evidence they took anything. Their position
59
00:03:44.439 --> 00:03:47.280
in plain English, we saw the company was in trouble.
60
00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:49.680
We made a plan B and that's not a crime.
61
00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:53.199
And that's where a former employee, someone not even part
62
00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:55.759
of the lawsuit, said something to the Daily Mail that
63
00:03:55.879 --> 00:03:59.199
stuck with me. They called the suit against Eddings and
64
00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:02.840
Guam vindive and unnecessary. They said the two are almost
65
00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.879
certainly in the right, that they're smart, straight shooters who
66
00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:07.919
saw the writing on the wall and got out before
67
00:04:07.919 --> 00:04:12.439
they got stranded. Now that's one side talking. But here's
68
00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:15.520
the part that isn't really in dispute. The same former
69
00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:20.240
employee admitted the company was overleveraged, too much overhead, built
70
00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:22.160
in a way that was going to struggle even in
71
00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:26.279
good times. And then the industry pulled back, content spending,
72
00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:30.120
dried up, project stalled, a slate of podcast got pitched
73
00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:34.079
and never made. Bloomberg reported the film and TV development
74
00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:38.519
had quote slowed. So who's to blame? Even the former
75
00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:42.000
employees won't pin it all on heart. The argument they
76
00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:45.240
make is more interesting than that. It's not whether Kevin
77
00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:48.800
worked hard. He did, and they'll tell you his job
78
00:04:48.920 --> 00:04:51.560
was never to sit in the office. His job was
79
00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:54.399
to go shoot movies and keep the lights on. The
80
00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:56.839
argument is about the people he put in the rooms
81
00:04:56.839 --> 00:05:00.240
he wasn't in. It's his name on the door. He's
82
00:05:00.279 --> 00:05:03.920
the man at the top. But the hires, the delegations,
83
00:05:04.120 --> 00:05:06.279
the people he trusted to run the place while he
84
00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:10.160
was on set. That's on him. And there's a track
85
00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:15.560
record here. Remember Harthouse, his plant based restaurant chain, launched
86
00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:19.480
twenty twenty two four locations around Los Angeles, and then
87
00:05:19.519 --> 00:05:22.680
in September of twenty twenty four, it shut every door
88
00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:26.839
with by one vendors account, no warning at all. A
89
00:05:26.920 --> 00:05:29.879
baker who supplied those restaurants told The Daily Mail the
90
00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:32.920
layoffs there felt like a domino effect and that the
91
00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:35.399
business could have been saved with the right people minding
92
00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:39.720
the details. Her read on Heart he takes on too much,
93
00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.079
hundreds of projects, can't manage it all. For his part,
94
00:05:44.279 --> 00:05:47.360
heart isn't apologizing for the cuts. He went on the
95
00:05:47.399 --> 00:05:50.160
Breakfast Club on May twenty sixth and said the quiet
96
00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:53.439
part out loud. Making money in this business matters. So
97
00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:56.240
he did what he had to do, which was downsize
98
00:05:56.279 --> 00:05:59.680
and save the money. And he insisted Heartbeat is never
99
00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:02.759
going going anywhere, said he won't even make a movie
100
00:06:02.839 --> 00:06:06.639
unless Heartbeat is producing it. Both things can be true here.
101
00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:10.199
Heart can be a generational talent and a relentless worker,
102
00:06:10.279 --> 00:06:12.519
and the people he hired to steer his company can
103
00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:16.240
have driven it into a ditch. Both things can be true.
104
00:06:16.519 --> 00:06:18.959
But the layoffs in the lawsuits aren't even the part
105
00:06:18.959 --> 00:06:22.360
of this story that'll make the headlines. That belongs to
106
00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:26.279
a woman named Misha Shakes. She was Kevin Hart's executive
107
00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:29.920
assistant from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty, which means she
108
00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:32.079
had a front row seat to the worst stretch of
109
00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:34.800
his public life, and she has just released a book
110
00:06:34.839 --> 00:06:38.879
about it called Truth Lies Entertainment. Now. I want to
111
00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:41.399
be careful here because a lot of what Shake says
112
00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:46.480
is her characterization, her interpretation, her version, But what she's
113
00:06:46.519 --> 00:06:50.560
describing is a culture. She writes that the longer she stayed,
114
00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:53.839
the more she noticed the patterns. Who spoke up and
115
00:06:53.879 --> 00:06:57.240
what happened to them, who stayed quiet and stayed protected,
116
00:06:57.680 --> 00:07:01.160
Who got covered, and who got blamed. She says the
117
00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:04.959
drama at Heartbeat was never just drama. It was power,
118
00:07:05.560 --> 00:07:10.839
it was image, it was loyalty, it was silence, and
119
00:07:10.879 --> 00:07:13.839
she says that's why so many things never got handled
120
00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:18.279
in the open. They got handled quietly behind doors, inside
121
00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:23.319
conversations and warnings in who got protected and who got blamed.
122
00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:26.680
There's a playbook for this, We've all seen it. And
123
00:07:26.839 --> 00:07:31.319
then she gets to twenty seventeen, the cheating scandal. Hart
124
00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:34.680
admitted he was unfaithful to his then pregnant wife Ni Coup.
125
00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:37.759
He'd claimed he was on ecstasy the night before in
126
00:07:37.839 --> 00:07:41.959
Las Vegas with a model named Mantia Sabag. He was
127
00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:47.879
losing endorsements. Things, Shakes writs, could have gotten worse, and then,
128
00:07:47.959 --> 00:07:51.920
in her telling, the story changed because a man named
129
00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:57.319
Jonathan JT. Jackson entered the picture. Heart alleged that Jackson,
130
00:07:57.519 --> 00:08:00.560
a former friend, had tried to sell a record video
131
00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:04.720
of the encounter to extort him, And suddenly, Shakes writes,
132
00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:09.079
that's what everyone was talking about, not the cheating, not
133
00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:14.360
the pregnancy, the backstabbing friend. It shifted the narrative. It
134
00:08:14.439 --> 00:08:16.839
made Kevin look like the victim in a story where,
135
00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:20.319
in her words, he was really the villain. And in
136
00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:23.959
a way, she says, it saved him. Here's what we
137
00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:27.639
can verify around that. Hart and his team reported the
138
00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:31.680
alleged extortion to the La County District Attorney. In twenty eighteen,
139
00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:35.559
Jackson was arrested. The charges were dropped in twenty nineteen.
140
00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:39.559
Then in twenty twenty four, Jackson turned around and sued
141
00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:42.639
Heart for breach of contract over an agreement they'd reached,
142
00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:47.679
seeking damages in excess of twelve million dollars. A judge
143
00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:51.759
sent that into private arbitration in May of twenty twenty five.
144
00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:55.000
Hart was ordered to pay the arbitration fees. He since
145
00:08:55.039 --> 00:08:57.720
paid a sixty seven hundred and fifty dollars fee, and
146
00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:01.519
that case is still grinding, along with a post arbitration
147
00:09:01.639 --> 00:09:05.000
status conference on the calendar for July first, and Shakes
148
00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:08.799
herself she is not a former employee, quietly fading away,
149
00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:13.240
she is suing. Hart originally sued her back in twenty
150
00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:17.000
twenty three, accusing her of violating her non disclosure agreement
151
00:09:17.039 --> 00:09:19.879
after she sat for an interview with the YouTuber Tasha Kay.
152
00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:24.519
He accused both women of civil extortion, alleging they demanded
153
00:09:24.519 --> 00:09:27.039
a quarter million dollar payout to keep a tell all
154
00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:31.000
interview from going public. Tasha Kay has since been dropped
155
00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:33.919
from that case, but Shakes is still in it a
156
00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:37.240
breach of contract and defamation fight, and she told The
157
00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:39.919
Daily Mail she is looking forward to her day in court.
158
00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:44.960
That day is coming. A jury trial is scheduled for
159
00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:49.120
October twelfth in Los Angeles. I'll leave you with one
160
00:09:49.159 --> 00:09:52.919
more thing on Heart, and it's the live one. On
161
00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:56.519
May tenth, Netflix aired the Roast of Kevin Hart, produced
162
00:09:56.519 --> 00:10:00.120
by Heart's Company. During it, comedian Tony Hinchcliff made a
163
00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:04.639
joke about George Floyd that drew immediate heavy criticism. Hart
164
00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:08.720
has admitted the joke was distasteful, but he's pushed back
165
00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:10.440
on the idea that he should have done something in
166
00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:13.960
the moment. It's a live production. He said, what was
167
00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:16.759
he supposed to do? Drag the guy off stage? Fight
168
00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:21.080
him Afterward. Shake's response to that cut to the bone.
169
00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:23.759
She said, it's not about the joke. It's that they
170
00:10:23.799 --> 00:10:26.200
wanted him to stand up for black culture and they
171
00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:29.600
couldn't even get an apology out of him. Look, you
172
00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:31.840
can be the funniest man in the room and still
173
00:10:31.879 --> 00:10:35.080
owe the room in apology. Those two things are not
174
00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:40.120
in conflict. When we come back. A doctor accused of
175
00:10:40.120 --> 00:10:42.480
poisoning her own husband with drain cleaner just had the
176
00:10:42.519 --> 00:10:45.519
case against her thrown out, not because she was cleared
177
00:10:45.879 --> 00:10:49.399
because of what the prosecution didn't hand over. Stay with me,
178
00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:02.480
welcome back. I'm Garrett Fisher. Let me set the scene
179
00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:04.559
for you, because this one has been crawling through the
180
00:11:04.600 --> 00:11:08.000
courts for years and it just took its strangest turn yet.
181
00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:12.120
Jack Chen is a doctor. So is his wife, or
182
00:11:12.360 --> 00:11:16.039
was his wife, Yuey Yu, who goes by Emily, a
183
00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:20.720
licensed dermatologist in southern California, and starting a few years back,
184
00:11:20.879 --> 00:11:24.320
Jack Chen says he began to feel sick for months.
185
00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:29.399
He noticed something off about his lemonade, a chemical taste.
186
00:11:29.840 --> 00:11:35.440
He started getting diagnosed with things stomach ulcers, gestritis, esophagitis,
187
00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:38.200
and at some point, a man who feels poisoned in
188
00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:40.559
his own home does the thing you do when you
189
00:11:40.600 --> 00:11:44.000
think you're going crazy. He sets up a camera. In
190
00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:47.519
July of twenty twenty two, Chen says that hidden camera
191
00:11:47.559 --> 00:11:50.919
in the kitchen caught his wife spiking his drinks, not once,
192
00:11:51.399 --> 00:11:54.240
at least three times. He took it to the police.
193
00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:58.320
The FBI confirmed there was drain cleaner draino present in
194
00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:02.360
a drinking glass, who was arrested. Chen filed for divorce
195
00:12:02.679 --> 00:12:05.960
and a custody battle started that frankly got even uglier
196
00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:09.799
than the poisoning allegation. If you can believe that, because
197
00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:13.600
here's what came out in family court in twenty twenty four.
198
00:12:13.879 --> 00:12:16.720
A judge stripped you of temporary physical custody of her
199
00:12:16.720 --> 00:12:20.120
two children after her own daughter told school officials she
200
00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:23.799
was afraid of her mother. A school therapist signed a
201
00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:28.279
declaration previously reported by The Daily Mail describing how the
202
00:12:28.279 --> 00:12:30.399
little girl said her mom used her phone to type
203
00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:33.159
out lines for the daughter to say about the draino,
204
00:12:33.600 --> 00:12:36.000
that the mother coached her on what to tell people
205
00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:38.679
if she was asked to say the draino was for
206
00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:41.960
getting rid of ants. And when the therapist asked this
207
00:12:42.039 --> 00:12:44.080
eleven year old whether she was afraid her mom would
208
00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:48.080
kill her, the girl said, yes. You has vehemently denied
209
00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:51.440
abusing her children. I'm gonna say that clearly because she's
210
00:12:51.639 --> 00:12:55.480
entitled to that denial. But that's what's in the record.
211
00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:59.039
Now here's the defense theory, and I want you to
212
00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:02.039
hold both of these in your head at once. Use
213
00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:05.600
attorneys argue that if a man actually drank dreno, he'd
214
00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:09.519
have far more severe internal injuries than ulcers and gestritis.
215
00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:13.159
That Chen more likely had a different gastro intestinal disease.
216
00:13:14.039 --> 00:13:16.639
They argue that draino in the lemonade was an ant killer,
217
00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:20.360
not a murder weapon. And they argue the whole thing
218
00:13:20.519 --> 00:13:23.879
was a ploy that Chen ginned up these allegations to
219
00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:27.919
win the custody fight. That's their case. A jury never
220
00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:31.080
got to weigh it because the case never made it
221
00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:34.600
to a jury. Let me walk you through the legal pinball.
222
00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:38.480
You was first indicted in twenty twenty three one felony
223
00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:42.639
count of domestic battery, three counts of poisoning. Then the
224
00:13:42.759 --> 00:13:47.399
judge Patrick Donahue told prosecutors something that mattered under the
225
00:13:47.399 --> 00:13:51.080
poisoning charge, they'd have to prove Chen was actually injured.
226
00:13:51.639 --> 00:13:54.559
So earlier this year the DA pivoted got a new
227
00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:57.679
indictment with a charge of attempted poisoning instead, because for
228
00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:00.440
an attempt you don't have to prove the injury landed.
229
00:14:01.039 --> 00:14:05.960
Clever until it wasn't. Because on Friday, Judge Donahue threw
230
00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:08.600
the whole indictment out. And the reason is the part
231
00:14:08.639 --> 00:14:11.519
that should make you sit up. The defense argued that
232
00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:16.039
prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from the grand jury, evidence that
233
00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:19.399
could have helped you and refused a grand juror's request
234
00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:22.759
to see more. The judge agreed the process that produced
235
00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:27.480
the indictment was, in the defense's words, fundamentally flawed. So
236
00:14:27.799 --> 00:14:31.320
it's gone not because twelve people heard everything and acquitted
237
00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:34.320
her because the grand jury never got the full picture
238
00:14:34.320 --> 00:14:38.120
in the first place. That's not a mistake. When you
239
00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:41.559
decide what a grand jury does and doesn't get to see,
240
00:14:41.879 --> 00:14:45.120
that's a choice. Now you is not in the clear,
241
00:14:45.279 --> 00:14:48.320
and I want to be precise about that. The Orange
242
00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:52.960
County DA's office, through spokeswoman Kimberly Eds, says flatly, we
243
00:14:53.039 --> 00:14:56.320
are refiling this case. They say they believe in the