Carrot Top’s legal team has accused Brian Evans of attempting to extort the comedian by threatening to place a sexually explicit recording on a court docket unless he was paid $500,000.
The allegation appears in a legal filing involving Scott Thompson, the comedian’s real name, and was made weeks before Thompson’s reported suicide attempt. He remains in hospital, according to the material.
The filing says Evans threatened to submit a USB drive containing the recording unless the proposed settlement was paid in “immediately available funds” in exchange for resolving all claims against Thompson.
In an email included as an exhibit to the September 3 filing, Evans disputed that his message amounted to a threat. He wrote: “Given the existing posture of the case and the coverage already in print, I expect the press will report the motion and will use its own imagination about what the USB is… That is a foreseeable fact about third-party reporting of a public docket. It is not a threat.”
Evans added: “Path A remains available on the terms previously stated: Five Hundred Thousand Dollars ($500,000.00) in immediately available funds, in exchange for resolution of all claims against Scott Thompson… Otherwise I will proceed with the motion for leave as the next filing.”
Other emails included in the filing show Evans sending online coverage of his case against the comedian to his legal team.
Thompson’s lawyers rejected the characterisation of the correspondence as settlement discussions. They wrote: “This is not settlement communication. On its face it is a malicious threat to expose Thompson to disgrace, and to expose a secret affecting him, with intent thereby to extort money under the guise of litigation conduct.”
Evans has been approached for comment but had not responded.
