Seeking to dismiss sex videos suit, Dolphins star Howard claims accuser sought payout
Miami Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard asked a Broward court to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that he filmed and shared explicit videos of him having sex with a woman who didn’t know she was being recorded.
In a court filing Monday, Howard’s attorney Brad Sohn requested that the court dismiss the case with prejudice, citing that the woman previously asked the NFL star for a multi-million dollar payout. The woman is now seeking more than $100,000 in damages, according to court records.
“After Mr. Howard declined to pay an anonymous accuser presumably millions of dollars, his accuser has brought infirm and unsalvageable legal claims, which should be dismissed with prejudice,” Sohn said in court records.
READ MORE: Miami Dolphins star Xavien Howard accused of making and sharing sex videos
Sohn also demanded that the woman suing, who is identified by pseudonym Jane Doe due to the nature of the allegations, “publicly puts her name behind her baseless accusations.” Attorney Cam Justice, who is representing the woman, claimed that Howard’s alleged non-consensual filming and sharing of videos invaded her privacy and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on her.
“Several of the videos are of Jane Doe and directly identify her,” Justice said in the complaint. “Defendant non-consensually recorded sex acts between himself and Jane Doe and non-consensually disseminated these sex videos to a third party, and likely other third-parties.”
However, Sohn argued the state’s invasion-of-privacy law requires that such content be shared with the public or a large audience “which by Ms. Doe’s own account did not happen.”
“Even accepting as true that Mr. Howard sent the text message to one unidentified woman, who claims to have shared it with another unidentified woman, Ms. Doe’s allegations do not allege sufficient publication,” Sohn said in the court filing. “Publication to “one individual or a few” cannot, as a matter of law, support an invasion of privacy claim.”
On top of that, Sohn noted the woman never alleges that Howard intended to inflict mental suffering.
“Ms. Doe would be forced to alter her entire story for her claims to be remotely viable,” he said in the court filing. “She would have to recast Mr. Howard’s motive and intent in purportedly sending the text message (redirecting it at herself instead of the third party), as well as invent other recipients of the text message (her Complaint expressly admits that she knows of only one).”
What does the lawsuit claim?
According to the complaint, a woman who dated Howard in early 2022 learned via Instagram in September that year that Howard took sexually explicit videos of her — and shared them with other people. The woman who reached out via DMs told her that Howard sent videos of him having sex with multiple women “to make her mad because she didn’t want to have sex with him.” The woman suing appeared in some of the clips.
In April, the woman suing was contacted by another woman who shared a similar story, according to the complaint. The woman said that Howard “recently” sent her sexually explicit pictures, some of which were of Jane Doe and were taken without her consent. Just six months earlier, Justice sent Howard a cease and desist letter, which demanded that he immediately stop sharing the explicit content with other people.
This isn’t the first time Howard faces a sex-related lawsuit. Last November, Howard was accused of knowingly giving a woman genital herpes. In March, the woman dropped the lawsuit. Sohn, who also represented Howard in that case, called the allegations a “fabricated lawsuit.”
Miami Herald staff writer Daniel Oyefusi contributed to this report.
