Kevin Hart's Company in Lawsuits and Layoffs, a Drano Poisoning Case Thrown Out, and the Anna Kepner Cruise-Death Trial

0:03 Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Garrett Fisher and this is Daily Crime Injustice for Tuesday, June second, twenty twenty six. I want to start this morning with a word people throw around when a famous man's business starts coming apart. The word is loyalty. We're going to talk about Kevin Hart today, about the lawsuits piling up at his company, about the people he laid off, and about a former assistant who stood next to him through the worst scandals of his career and has now written a book about what she saw. And the question underneath all of it is simple. When the cameras are off, who gets protected and who gets blamed. Then we go to California, where a case I find genuinely infuriating just collapsed, and not because anyone decided the defendant was innocent. A dermatologist accused of pouring drain cleaner into her own husband drinks, walked out of an Orange County courtroom on Friday with her indictment thrown out not on the merits on a technicality, the prosecution handed the defense for free. We'll talk about how that happens and what it means for a man who says he was being poisoned in his own kitchen.

1:17 And then we come back to a name we've been carrying on this show since November, Anna Kepner, eighteen years old, found dead under a bed on a Carnival cruise ship. We brought you her story when it was still a mystery, we brought you the indictment in April, and last week in a Miami federal courtroom, prosecutors stood up and described in detail what they say her sixteen year old stepbrother did to her, and then a judge had to decide whether that young man gets to keep sleeping at home until his trial. A quick warning before we get there. That segment includes descriptions of sexual assault. If you've got little ears in the car, this is your head's up.

1:58 Three cases, one through line. Look, I'm going to be honest with you. Every one of these stories is about the same thing. It's about who the system protects when the stakes get high. Let's get into it. Kevin Hart is one of the hardest working men in show business. Nobody disputes that fourteen projects in the pipeline by his own count. He hosts, he produces, he stars, he sells out arenas so when his own production company starts looking like a sinking ship, the natural question is, how does that happen to a guy who never stops working. Let's lay out the facts. Heartbeat is Heart's production company. Late last year, it partnered with Authentic Brands Group, a licensing and marketing operation, in a deal that, according to former employees, some staff warned could be quote the beginning of the end of Heartbeat. Around the same time the layoff started.

2:56 Reports of twelve employees let go in December, and then in February, Heartbeat went on the offensive. It sued two former employees, Eric Eddings and Leslie Guam, alleging breach of contract, unfair business practices, and misappropriation of trade secrets. Here's the company's theory. According to reporting from TMZ, Heartbeat claims Eddings and Guam had access to confidential and proprietary information, financial data, partnership strategies, business plans for the company's audio and podcast division, and that they were going to use it to launch their own competing podcast venture. Heartbeat asked a court for an injunction to stop them. Eddings and Guam pushed back hard.

3:41 They say there's no evidence they took anything. Their position in plain English, we saw the company was in trouble. We made a plan B and that's not a crime. And that's where a former employee, someone not even part of the lawsuit, said something to the Daily Mail that stuck with me. They called the suit against Eddings and Guam vindive and unnecessary. They said the two are almost certainly in the right, that they're smart, straight shooters who saw the writing on the wall and got out before they got stranded. Now that's one side talking. But here's the part that isn't really in dispute. The same former employee admitted the company was overleveraged, too much overhead, built in a way that was going to struggle even in good times. And then the industry pulled back, content spending, dried up, project stalled, a slate of podcast got pitched and never made. Bloomberg reported the film and TV development had quote slowed. So who's to blame? Even the former employees won't pin it all on heart. The argument they make is more interesting than that. It's not whether Kevin worked hard. He did, and they'll tell you his job was never to sit in the office. His job was to go shoot movies and keep the lights on. The argument is about the people he put in the rooms he wasn't in. It's his name on the door. He's the man at the top. But the hires, the delegations, the people he trusted to run the place while he was on set. That's on him. And there's a track record here. Remember Harthouse, his plant based restaurant chain, launched

5:15 twenty twenty two four locations around Los Angeles, and then in September of twenty twenty four, it shut every door with by one vendors account, no warning at all. A baker who supplied those restaurants told The Daily Mail the layoffs there felt like a domino effect and that the business could have been saved with the right people minding the details. Her read on Heart he takes on too much, hundreds of projects, can't manage it all. For his part, heart isn't apologizing for the cuts. He went on the Breakfast Club on May twenty sixth and said the quiet part out loud. Making money in this business matters. So he did what he had to do, which was downsize and save the money. And he insisted Heartbeat is never going going anywhere, said he won't even make a movie unless Heartbeat is producing it. Both things can be true here.

6:07 Heart can be a generational talent and a relentless worker, and the people he hired to steer his company can have driven it into a ditch. Both things can be true. But the layoffs in the lawsuits aren't even the part of this story that'll make the headlines. That belongs to a woman named Misha Shakes. She was Kevin Hart's executive assistant from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty, which means she had a front row seat to the worst stretch of his public life, and she has just released a book about it called Truth Lies Entertainment. Now. I want to be careful here because a lot of what Shake says is her characterization, her interpretation, her version, But what she's describing is a culture. She writes that the longer she stayed, the more she noticed the patterns. Who spoke up and what happened to them, who stayed quiet and stayed protected, Who got covered, and who got blamed. She says the drama at Heartbeat was never just drama. It was power, it was image, it was loyalty, it was silence, and she says that's why so many things never got handled in the open. They got handled quietly behind doors, inside conversations and warnings in who got protected and who got blamed.

7:23 There's a playbook for this, We've all seen it. And then she gets to twenty seventeen, the cheating scandal. Hart admitted he was unfaithful to his then pregnant wife Ni Coup. He'd claimed he was on ecstasy the night before in Las Vegas with a model named Mantia Sabag. He was losing endorsements. Things, Shakes writs, could have gotten worse, and then, in her telling, the story changed because a man named Jonathan JT. Jackson entered the picture. Heart alleged that Jackson, a former friend, had tried to sell a record video of the encounter to extort him, And suddenly, Shakes writes, that's what everyone was talking about, not the cheating, not the pregnancy, the backstabbing friend. It shifted the narrative. It made Kevin look like the victim in a story where, in her words, he was really the villain. And in a way, she says, it saved him. Here's what we can verify around that. Hart and his team reported the alleged extortion to the La County District Attorney. In twenty eighteen, Jackson was arrested. The charges were dropped in twenty nineteen.

8:36 Then in twenty twenty four, Jackson turned around and sued Heart for breach of contract over an agreement they'd reached, seeking damages in excess of twelve million dollars. A judge sent that into private arbitration in May of twenty twenty five. Hart was ordered to pay the arbitration fees. He since paid a sixty seven hundred and fifty dollars fee, and that case is still grinding, along with a post arbitration status conference on the calendar for July first, and Shakes herself she is not a former employee, quietly fading away, she is suing. Hart originally sued her back in twenty twenty three, accusing her of violating her non disclosure agreement after she sat for an interview with the YouTuber Tasha Kay.

9:20 He accused both women of civil extortion, alleging they demanded a quarter million dollar payout to keep a tell all interview from going public. Tasha Kay has since been dropped from that case, but Shakes is still in it a breach of contract and defamation fight, and she told The Daily Mail she is looking forward to her day in court. That day is coming. A jury trial is scheduled for October twelfth in Los Angeles. I'll leave you with one more thing on Heart, and it's the live one. On May tenth, Netflix aired the Roast of Kevin Hart, produced by Heart's Company. During it, comedian Tony Hinchcliff made a joke about George Floyd that drew immediate heavy criticism. Hart has admitted the joke was distasteful, but he's pushed back on the idea that he should have done something in the moment. It's a live production. He said, what was he supposed to do? Drag the guy off stage? Fight him Afterward. Shake's response to that cut to the bone.

10:21 She said, it's not about the joke. It's that they wanted him to stand up for black culture and they couldn't even get an apology out of him. Look, you can be the funniest man in the room and still owe the room in apology. Those two things are not in conflict. When we come back. A doctor accused of poisoning her own husband with drain cleaner just had the case against her thrown out, not because she was cleared because of what the prosecution didn't hand over. Stay with me, welcome back. I'm Garrett Fisher. Let me set the scene for you, because this one has been crawling through the courts for years and it just took its strangest turn yet.

11:08 Jack Chen is a doctor. So is his wife, or was his wife, Yuey Yu, who goes by Emily, a licensed dermatologist in southern California, and starting a few years back, Jack Chen says he began to feel sick for months. He noticed something off about his lemonade, a chemical taste. He started getting diagnosed with things stomach ulcers, gestritis, esophagitis, and at some point, a man who feels poisoned in his own home does the thing you do when you think you're going crazy. He sets up a camera. In July of twenty twenty two, Chen says that hidden camera in the kitchen caught his wife spiking his drinks, not once, at least three times. He took it to the police.

11:54 The FBI confirmed there was drain cleaner draino present in a drinking glass, who was arrested. Chen filed for divorce and a custody battle started that frankly got even uglier than the poisoning allegation. If you can believe that, because here's what came out in family court in twenty twenty four. A judge stripped you of temporary physical custody of her two children after her own daughter told school officials she was afraid of her mother. A school therapist signed a declaration previously reported by The Daily Mail describing how the little girl said her mom used her phone to type out lines for the daughter to say about the draino, that the mother coached her on what to tell people if she was asked to say the draino was for getting rid of ants. And when the therapist asked this eleven year old whether she was afraid her mom would kill her, the girl said, yes. You has vehemently denied abusing her children. I'm gonna say that clearly because she's entitled to that denial. But that's what's in the record.

12:56 Now here's the defense theory, and I want you to hold both of these in your head at once. Use attorneys argue that if a man actually drank dreno, he'd have far more severe internal injuries than ulcers and gestritis. That Chen more likely had a different gastro intestinal disease. They argue that draino in the lemonade was an ant killer, not a murder weapon. And they argue the whole thing was a ploy that Chen ginned up these allegations to win the custody fight. That's their case. A jury never got to weigh it because the case never made it to a jury. Let me walk you through the legal pinball. You was first indicted in twenty twenty three one felony count of domestic battery, three counts of poisoning. Then the judge Patrick Donahue told prosecutors something that mattered under the poisoning charge, they'd have to prove Chen was actually injured.

13:51 So earlier this year the DA pivoted got a new indictment with a charge of attempted poisoning instead, because for an attempt you don't have to prove the injury landed. Clever until it wasn't. Because on Friday, Judge Donahue threw the whole indictment out. And the reason is the part that should make you sit up. The defense argued that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from the grand jury, evidence that could have helped you and refused a grand juror's request to see more. The judge agreed the process that produced the indictment was, in the defense's words, fundamentally flawed. So it's gone not because twelve people heard everything and acquitted her because the grand jury never got the full picture in the first place. That's not a mistake. When you decide what a grand jury does and doesn't get to see, that's a choice. Now you is not in the clear, and I want to be precise about that. The Orange County DA's office, through spokeswoman Kimberly Eds, says flatly, we are refiling this case. They say they believe in the strength of the evidence and the conduct of their prosecutors, and they'll keep litigating it to pursue justice for a man they describe as being methodically poisoned by his wife.

15:06 You's lawyer, Scott Simmons says his client is relieved that she just wants to move on and rebuild her life in peace. That she hasn't practiced medicine this whole time and hasn't been able to see her kids, So both sides are digging in the defense says they'll move to dismiss again the second a new case is filed. Here's where I land Emily. U is presumed innocent. That is real, and it matters, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But a dismissal over withheld evidence isn't a verdict of innocence. It's a verdict on the prosecution. And somewhere in the middle of all this legal maneuvering is a man who says he watched his own wife pour poison into his drink and two kids caught in the worst tug of war imaginable. The system owes all of them a clean process.

15:55 Get it right this time. After the break, we return to a case we've carried since life fall Anna Kepner, the cruise ship death that became a murder charge. There's a content warning on this one. It involves sexual assault, and I'm going to handle it the way she deserves. Stay with me, Welcome back. Before I say another word. The warning I promised this segment describes a sexual assault. If you need to skip ahead, skip ahead. I'll understand. Now. We have been with Anna Kepner since November, so if you're new to the show, let me tell you who she was before I tell you what happened to her, because that's the order that matters. Anna Kepner was eighteen years old, a cheerleader from Florida's Space Coast. She chronicled her love of travel on TikTok. She wanted to join the Navy or become a K nine handler with the Titusville Police Department after she graduated. Her family's obituary called her pure energy, bubbly, funny, outgoing, comple deletely herself. That is who we are talking about, not a case number, a young woman who was about to start her whole life.

17:08 Here's what we've reported before. Last November seventh, Anna was on the Carnival Horizon, sailing the Caribbean with a blended family, her father, Christopher Kepner, her stepmother, Chantelle Hudson, and her stepmother's children. To save money, Anna was sharing a cabin with two of those kids, her fourteen year old half brother and her sixteen year old step brother, Timothy Hudson. The family considered Anna and Timothy two peas in a pod. The next morning, a cleaning crew found Anna's body stuffed under her bed, wrapped in a blanket, hidden behind a box of life vests. We told you when the death certificate came back homicide by mechanical asphyxiation. And we told you in April when a federal grand jury indicted Timothy Hudson as an adult on charges of first degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse. Last Wednesday, May twenty seventh, in a federal courtroom in Miami, the case moved again, and what came out is the hardest version of this story we've heard yet. The hearing was about one narrow question, now that Timothy is being charged as an adult, should he be locked up before his September trial or stay where he's been living at his uncle's house in central Florida on a GPS monitor. But to argue for detention, the prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Alexandra Lopez, laid out the government's evidence, and I'm going to give it to you carefully.

18:31 Lopez told the court. The government has evidence Timothy was obsessed with Anna, that he had, in her words, a crush on his stepsister. Prosecutors say the two were alone in that cabin for about three hours. Anna used her phone for the last time at eight fourteen in the evening to send a Snapchat at nine point fifty two. Prosecutors say Timothy was seen leaving the cabin to roam the ship. A minute later, the court heard surveillance caught him dropping Anna's phone into a trash can. When her fourteen year old half brother tried to come back to the room, someone was blocking the door from the inside. When he finally got in, Anna was nowhere to be seen. She was already gone, hidden under the bed. The medical evidence, the prosecutor described as brutal and I'm going to state it plainly and then move on bruising on Anna's neck an ear drum that ruptured the government's position, is that Timothy strangled her for three to five minutes, long enough.

19:29 Lopez argued that he had time to think, time to deliberate, and he kept squeezing, and there was sexual assault. DNA testing, the government says matched seamen found in Anna's body to Timothy. The defense doesn't fully dispute that the two had sex. Timothy's public defender, Eric Cohen, conceded they likely did, but argues there isn't enough evidence to prove it was non consensual or that it happened at the same time as the killing. I'll let you sit with that argument for a second. I'm not going to characterize it for you. I think it characterizes itself. The defense's pitch to keep Timothy free was practical. Cohen told the judge the boy has complied with every condition of his release. No driver's license, no car, no means to flee. He's sixteen, in the care of responsible adults, and federal law genuinely complicates detention here.

20:22 Juveniles can't be held with adult inmates and can't be kept in anything resembling solitary confinement. The government had an answer, a secure juvenile facility in Miami run by the state, where Timothy would be with other miners and would get meals in schooling. Lopez's closing line to the judge was as blunt as it gets. He raped and murdered his stepsister. He's proven he's a danger, protect the community, detain this defendant, and the judge. US Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres didn't do it, not yet. He said he wanted to know whether a facility could be found closer to Hernando County, where Timothy's family could actually visit him. He said he'd wait to hear from the US Marshall Service before making a final call.

21:07 So for now, the young man accused of raping and strangling his eighteen year old stepsister goes back to a house under house arrest while a judge weighs logistics. Anna's father, Christopher, wants him held. He told a reporter plainly, I want him in custody that with Timothy free, the boy has put it in the back of his mind, like there are no consequences for his actions. I want to be fair, because fairness is the whole point of what we do here. Timothy Hudson is sixteen. He has pleaded not guilty. He has not been convicted of anything. Because he was a minor when Anna died, he cannot face the death penalty, and the Supreme Court ruled back in twenty twelve that mandatory life without parole for juveniles is unconstitutional. The prosecutor herself admitted something striking in that courtroom that the government doesn't actually know what made Timothy, in her word, lash out.

22:03 There is a trial coming on September eighth, and that's where guilt gets decided, not here, not by me. But I keep coming back to the father. He pulled his own daughter out from under that bed, he told the Daily Mail. He checked her pulse, and he knew she was gone long before any medical examiner arrived. Nobody was paying attention to her when it mattered most. In a cabin on a family vacation, sharing a room with someone the family trusted, someone has to say her name. So I'm going to Anna Kepner, eighteen years old. Should be home this summer, should be deciding between the Navy and the K nine unit. Should be alive. Rest Easyana, We're still here and we're still watching this one. Three cases this morning and one thread running through all of them.

22:53 Who the system decides to protect when the stakes are high. A company that lawyers up against the workers who left, the prosecution that decided what a grand jury did and didn't get to see. And a courtroom weighing whether the comfort of one family outweighs the safety of everyone else. Accountability doesn't have a legal department. It never has. If this episode meant something to you, do me a favor, share it, Send it to one person who follows these cases the way you do, the friend who always wants to know what happened. Next word of mouth is how this show grows, and it's how Anna Kepner's name keeps getting said out loud. And if you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment. I read them, and I want to hear from you on this one. Here's the question I'm putting to you today. The judge let Anna Kepner's accuse step brother stay on house arrest instead of jailing him before trial. If you are on that bench, knowing what you now know, detain him or leave him home. Tell me why. If you're watching on YouTube or catching us anywhere else, the comments are open there too. I'm Garrett Fisher.

23:59 This has been Daly. Crime and Justice take care of each other out there and do better. Daily. Crime and Justice covers ongoing legal matters. Everyone discussed today is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. In the Kevin Hart segment, many of the claims, including those about Heartbeat's internal culture, the trade secrets dispute with Eric Ettings and Leslie Guam, and the matters involving Misha Shak's and JT. Jackson, are allegations drawn from civil filings of former employees, memoir and press interviews. They are unproven and contested and Kevin Hart denies wrongdoing. In the Emily U matter, the indictment was dismissed on May twenty ninth on procedural grounds, not on the merits. Doctor U has not been convicted, denies all allegations, and prosecutors say they intend to refile, and in the Anna Kepner case, Timothy Hudson has pleaded not guilty and stands accused, not convicted.

25:00 We note that some early reports of a guilty plea were inaccurate, that the sexual assault allegations emerged as the investigation developed after initial preliminary findings, and that the May twenty seventh detention ruling remains pending. Sources for today's reporting include Court TV, The Daily Mail, The Associated Press, News Nation, Newsweek, NBC Los Angeles, and ABC seven