A lawsuit was filed against former basketball pro Dwight Howard in July by a man named Stephen Harper accusing Howard of sexually assaulting him and “intentional infliction of emotional distress” and false imprisonment.
via: Radar Online
The Georgia man who slammed Howard with a sexual assault lawsuit has accused the former NBA star of submitting questionable text messages as part of a desperate bid to get the case tossed, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal.
The stunning accusations included an affidavit, obtained by RadarOnline.com, by the accuser Stephen Harper who flat-out disputed the validity of several text messages submitted by Howard in December.
Harper’s legal team charged the “questionable” evidence purportedly showed that the alleged victim wanted to participate in a threesome with a man dressed as a woman named “Kitty.”
“Defendant Howard appears to be perpetuating the tired excuse that Mr. Harper was somehow asking for it,” the scathing court documents stated. “In an attempt to bolster his position, Defendant Howard submits questionable ‘evidence,’ which conveniently surfaced just in time for filing Defendant Howard’s Motion for Summary Judgment.”
“However, the authenticity of this text exchange between Defendant Howard and Mr. Harper is in question.”
But Howard’s renowned attorney, Justin Bailey, of the powerhouse law firm Goede, DeBoest & Cross PLLC, vehemently refuted the allegations by Harper’s legal team and insisted the smoking gun text messages submitted into evidence were pulled directly from his iPhone.
“If anyone can tell me how anyone could hack into a phone platform and add messages to a text chain that were never sent that would be an interesting concept for me,” Bailey told RadarOnline.com. “That is what they are essentially alleging is that somehow Mr. Howard went back in time and added text messages to a text chain and that is not possible.”
He added: “These messages were pulled from the iMessage history.”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Harper sued Howard in July accusing the basketball star of allegedly forcing him into an unwanted threesome with Kitty.
But in a 57-page brief, Howard waylaid Harper’s claim with a string of text messages that allegedly showed him acknowledging the threesome and later pining for the 6-foot-8 hoopster after their raunchy one-night stand.
Howard has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, insisting the threesome was consensual and accused Harper of being disgruntled over the one-nighter.
But in a bombshell five-page affidavit, Harper denied sending some of the text messages.
“Exhibit 4 does not accurately depict the text message conversation between myself and Dwight Howard,” Harper stated. “Specifically, Defendant’s Exhibit 4 appears to have been altered to include a text message that I never sent to Dwight Howard.”
“I never said that I wanted to have a threesome with Dwight,” Harper stated, along with refuting exhibit 5.
Harper’s renowned legal team, Olga Izmaylova and Sadeer Sabbak argued Howard’s request for summary judgment is premature especially since “meaningful discovery” of the evidence has not occurred.
Harper subpoenaed his cell phone carrier for certified copies of his phone records that will accurately depict his electronic text message exchanges with Howard.
“This case has nothing to do with unrequited love,” Harper’s lawyers argued using a phrase from Howard’s motion for summary judgment.
“This case is about a sexual predator, who does not seem to understand that ‘no’ means ‘no.’ The reality is Defendant Howard sexually assaulted Mr. Harper and now, wants everyone to believe the assault was consensual.”
