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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

TV Exec’s Wife Says ‘Scare Tactics’ Extended to Real Life

(CN) - The wife of TV producer Kevin Healey, an executive behind such shows as "Scare Tactics" and "Betty White's Off Their Rockers," says in a lawsuit that a dispute between him and a former business partner has been anything but a laughing matter.

In a complaint filed in the California Superior Court in Ventura County, Cara Healey says her husband and former associate, defendant Scott Hallock, worked successfully on several television shows before having a falling out in December 2011.

In addition to the already mentioned shows, their shared credits include "Freak Encounters," "Monster House," "Breaking Up with Shannon Doherty," and "Cheating Spouses Caught on Tape," the website IMDb says.

In addition to their "extensive and intertwined business relationships," the two men "also developed extensive personal relationships, not only between themselves but also between their respective families," Cara Healey says.

Healey doesn't divulge why the men had a falling out in her lawsuit, but says over time they engaged in "a number of serious disputes."

"After lengthy, and quite costly, efforts to informally resolve those disputes, Kevin and Defendant Hallock agreed to terminate their numerous business relationships, separate themselves from each other and divide the assets of their mutual business entities and dealings," she says.

In August 2012, Kevin Healey and Hallock signed a settlement agreement intended to memorialize the dissolving of their partnership. But later Hallock challenged the amount of income reported to have been generated by their TV shows and accused Healey of helping himself to $600,000 in proceeds he was not owed.

The dispute went to mediation, as required under the settlement agreement, and a mediator ultimately decided that not only did Healey not owe Hallock any money, but in fact Hallock owned Healey $5,000, the complaint says.

The dispute then moved -- again as required under by the settlement, if a dispute remains unresolved -- to arbitration.

But by this time, Cara Healey says, Hallock's resources had been seriously depleted. Fearing "further ruinous expense with the significant likelihood of an adverse result, Defendant Hallock sought to circumvent the expense of further litigation."

Healey claims Hallock did this by attempting to take advantage of the fact she and her husband's relationship had become strained and they were no longer living together.

Healey says in an effort to strong-arm her husband, Hallock arranged for a mob associate to call her to "emphasize the necessity of Kevin 'settling' the dispute."

Healey says the menacing voicemail left on her home phone revealed the caller had an intimate knowledge of her husband's personal and business affairs, and also knew the couple wasn't living together.

The caller also mentioned the name of a known mobster, who he said, stood to benefit financially from the resolution of the dispute, she says.

The call, Healey believes, "Was made with the intention to frighten and intimidate Plaintiff and cause her to sustain severe emotional distress with the goal of inducing Plaintiff to persuade Kevin to give in to the meritless demands of Defendant Hallock."

"The conduct of Defendants Hallock and Does 1 through 10 constitutes extreme and outrageous conduct by Defendants which exceed all bounds of that which is usually tolerated by a civilized community," Healey says.

She says she now fears for her safety and the safety of her children, and that she's spent thousands of dollars for counseling and a new home security system.

Healey seeks at least $500,000 in compensatory damages, as well as punitive and exemplary damages and an injunctive relief to restrain the defendant from continuing to intimidate her.

Healey is represented by Lawrence P. House of Simi Valley, Calif.

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