A Georgia judge denied a motion filed by Dwight Howard to dismiss a sexual assault lawsuit filed against him. The judge did agree to seal part of the court documents.
via: Radar Online
A long-simmering lawsuit between Dwight Howard and a man who claimed he was threatened and harassed to keep their alleged affair a secret was quietly dismissed, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.
The abrupt decision to dismiss the case was made nearly one month after a Georgia judge refused to toss out a sexual assault lawsuit filed by another man who claimed he was forced into a threesome at Howard’s home with a man dressed as a woman named “Kitty.”
In court, Howard denied he had a hot-and-heavy tryst with Masin Elije, 28, who slammed the former L.A. Laker with a 2019 lawsuit in Gwinnett County Superior Court. Elije accused the hoopster of “assault” and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
The legal battle languished in court for years. In 2023, Elije’s claims were dismissed but Howard was allowed to move forward with his counterclaims of libel, slander, and invasion of privacy against Elije.
The case had no movement until after another man named Stephen Harper sued Howard for assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment after the July 2021 romp with Kitty.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, the 6-foot-10-inch NBA star shocked fans when he admitted the threesome with Harper was consensual and his subsequent lawsuit was a case of “unrequited love.”
This week, Howard, who is still fighting Harper, decided to drop all his counterclaims against Elije.
“Yes, Mr. Howard’s attorneys filed a dismissal with the court, so that case is now closed,” Elije’s renowned lawyers Olga Izmaylova and Sadeer Sabbak said in a statement.
“I don’t want to speculate on what Mr. Howard is thinking but I will say that his claims in the [Elije] matter and his defenses in the Harper matter are inconsistent with one another.”
In his lawsuit, Elije, claimed Howard allegedly dispatched goons to harass and intimidate him into signing a non-disclosure agreement vowing to keep his mouth shut about their secret relationship. At the time Howard vehemently denied a relationship with any man.
Elije claimed Howard’s pal Kitty allegedly threatened him in 2018 after he started speaking out about Howard’s sexual activities. Harper claims the same Kitty told him “Someone will put a bullet in his head,” if he squawked about the encounter with Howard, according to court documents.
As RadarOnline.com reported last month, Gwinnett County’s Chief Judge Carla E. Brown rejected Howard’s request to toss out Harper’s claim stating he provided an “affidavit and other evidence raising triable issues of material fact,” documents showed.
Harper claimed he met Howard on Instagram and sent the ex-NBA star a direct message which led to them exchanging phone numbers, according to the court documents.
Harper said the conversations quickly turned sexual with Howard asking for explicit photos and videos. The two talked for weeks before Howard invited Harper over to his home on July 19, 2021 where they started kissing and getting intimate.
But things went downhill when Howard left the room and returned with Kitty. In his filing, Harper claimed Howard forcibly performed a sexual act on him without consent Howard fired back and charged the threesome was consensual and accused Harper of concocting the abuse allegation when he cut off contact with him.
