Carrot Top’s Lawyer Seeks a Freeze on Evans Filings

Carrot Top’s lawyer asked a Broward County judge on Sept. 20 to freeze Brian Evans’s e-filing, citing the comedian’s suicide attempt two days earlier.

The paper treats the public court file as the alleged weapon. Ronnie Bitman wants Evans, a Hallandale Beach singer and former Luxor opener, barred from new filings unless a judge allows them.

The Motion Asks to Shut Off Evans’s E-Filing

Bitman, of Bitman O’Brien, PLLC in Lake Mary, filed the emergency motion in the 17th Judicial Circuit. The Broward case is CACE-26-012570, consolidated with CACE-26-012670, before Judge Shari Africk Olefson. Scott Christopher Thompson, 61, is named in that caption. The clerk stamped the motion at 6:43 p.m. on Sept. 20, two days after police were called to Thompson’s Las Vegas home.

This is now an emergency in the most human sense. A public filing can become national news almost immediately.

Ronnie Bitman, attorney for Scott Thompson, emergency motion in Broward County

Bitman called Evans a serial filer who abuses the court system and said ordinary remedies after the fact are not enough. He asked for relief needed to protect the proceedings and prevent irreversible disclosure. Evans has already filed a limited opposition. No order granting the freeze has been entered.

WHAT THE SEPT. 20 MOTION ASKS

• Show-cause order: Immediate process against Evans over the alleged use of filings as leverage.
• Gatekeeping: A prefiling screen so new papers need the court’s approval first.
• Clerk control: A directive that the clerk reject or hold papers Bitman calls inflammatory.
• E-filing cut-off: Deactivation of Evans’s electronic filing privileges while he is proceeding without a lawyer.

Those asks would put a pro se plaintiff behind a judicial lock. Evans is representing himself. The motion is still a request, not a finding that he extorted anyone.

A $500,000 Path and a USB Drive

The freeze bid sits on a Sept. 3 notice Bitman styled as communications demonstrating plaintiff’s extortion. Exhibits include an email in which Evans laid out $500,000 in immediately available funds to resolve all claims against Thompson, and said that otherwise he would proceed with a motion for leave as the next filing. The same thread discussed a USB drive and what the press might make of it if a motion hit the public docket.

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.

Brian Evans, email to Ronnie Bitman, exhibit to the Sept. 3 notice

Bitman answered that this was not settlement communication. He wrote that on its face it was a malicious threat to expose Thompson to disgrace, and to expose a secret affecting him, with intent to extort money under the guise of litigation conduct. Four days before the Sept. 18 crisis, on Sept. 14, Evans sent a separate $2 million global proposal, with a Wednesday afternoon deadline, to end related claims and keep the deal private. Hours later Bitman emailed an assistant for Judge Olefson and accused Evans of a campaign of extortion, saying he would file false, malicious, and incendiary materials for the press to pick up.

Evans denies the felony reading. He said he never threatened, ever, to post any video anywhere in exchange for a settlement, and that the video they are discussing was deleted a long time ago in accordance with the prior settlement. He said he was sorry Thompson apparently did something to hurt himself, that he does not consider Scott a bad person, and that a few bad decisions are not a reason to hurt himself. He also said it was not his fault, that people do not even actually know what Thompson did, and that he survived and Evans is glad about that.

https://x.com/croon1/status/2101534198959915089

WHAT WE KNOW

• The paper trail: A 2024 written settlement exists, and Evans is trying to unwind it in Florida court.
• The money emails: Evans put $500,000 and later $2 million on the table as paths to end claims.
• The hospital record: Thompson has been hospitalized in Las Vegas since Sept. 18, and his own lawyer described a suicide attempt in the emergency motion.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The recording: Evans says it was deleted under the 2024 deal; Bitman treats a USB filing as a live threat.
• The legal label: No court has ruled that the emails are extortion rather than settlement talk.
• The cause: Bitman ties Thompson’s decline to the threats; Evans rejects blame, and nothing in the file proves the lawsuit caused the attempt.

That is why the clerk’s window matters more than a website dump. A motion sitting in a public file can be copied the next morning. Florida’s statute on unauthorized promotion of a sexually explicit image even carves out a person participating in a hearing, trial, or other legal proceeding from its criminal and civil penalties. Bitman is still asking the judge to treat a threatened docket drop as the harm, and to cut off the channel that would let it happen.

What the 2024 Settlement Was Supposed to End

Both sides agree they signed a written settlement in 2024. Evans now says that deal is voidable. In federal papers he said that when he signed he lacked the mental capacity to enter a binding contract, after psychiatric injuries he tied to the Maui wildfires on Aug. 8, 2023, including PTSD, generalized anxiety, major depression, and insomnia. He also said he entered the deal because of representations about future professional help and entertainment opportunities that did not arrive.

His Broward complaint describes a closer, then broken, working relationship. Evans said that in about 2022 or 2023 Thompson texted him an unsolicited sexually explicit video of the comedian with another man Evans described as significantly younger, and that he was immediately shocked, disturbed, and offended. He wants the 2024 agreement thrown out and is seeking further damages. Thompson’s team says Evans has spent more than two years using court papers and the threat of private secrets to demand money.

On Sept. 14, the same day as the $2 million proposal, Zachary Defazio, 25, filed a declaration in Evans’s case calling himself a second independent victim. He alleged that in 2021, at Thompson’s Winter Park home, he was 19, given alcohol, and unable to consent. His then-counsel had floated a $7.5 million confidential demand, including legal fees, and dropped the matter on Sept. 11. Those claims are allegations in a supporting affidavit, not findings by a judge.

Evans Walked Out of Federal Court on Aug. 6

Before Broward, Evans opened a diversity suit Evans filed on July 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, case 26-cv-24682, paid a $405 fee, and named Thompson as defendant. He sought a declaration that the 2024 settlement was void, plus rescission, fraudulent inducement, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Judge Roy K. Altman presided, with Magistrate Judge Yeney Hernandez referred on pretrial matters.

TWO FORUMS, ONE SETTLEMENT FIGHT

The federal stop was not a ruling on the sex-tape or capacity claims. Evans dismissed under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) and, the same day, refiled in state court against Creative Artists Agency, Steve Levine, and Thompson. Altman closed the federal file and killed the remaining deadlines.

THE SUMMER DOCKET BEFORE THE HOSPITAL

1. July 8, 2026: Evans files the federal complaint to unwind the 2024 settlement.
2. July 10, 2026: He seeks a temporary restraining order; the magistrate strikes the emergency label because the claimed harm is money.
3. July 15, 2026: Hernandez recommends denial, finding no imminent irreparable harm.
4. July 17, 2026: Altman strikes a second notice of non-consent, calls it frivolous, and warns of sanctions, including dismissal under Rule 41.
5. July 23, 2026: Hernandez denied Evans a volunteer lawyer, finding he had not shown he could not pay one.
6. July 31, 2026: Altman overrules Evans’s objections and denies the restraining order. Evans had cited about $7,000 a day in arbitration fees and $83,000 in potential exposure; the court held that money is not irreparable harm.
7. Aug. 6, 2026: Evans drops the federal case without prejudice and opens the Broward file that now holds the freeze motion.

The Broward docket is where Bitman wants the clerk’s gate locked. Evans has also moved to disqualify Judge Olefson and has sued Bitman in a separate caption over the Sept. 3 extortion notice. None of those side fights has produced the freeze order Thompson’s team wants.

Florida Law Treats Explicit Images as a Civil Harm

Bitman told the court that Florida law expressly recognizes the serious privacy and psychological harms associated with dissemination of sexually explicit images and permits a private cause of action for violation. That language tracks the legislature’s findings in the state’s civil action for sexual cyberharassment. Section 784.049 says a person may keep a reasonable expectation of privacy in a sexually explicit image even after sharing it, and that nonconsensual dissemination causes significant psychological harm.

CIVIL TOOLS UNDER SECTION 784.049

• Injunction: A court can order someone to stop publishing or spreading an image.
• Money floor: A plaintiff may seek $10,000 or actual damages, whichever is greater.
• Punitive damages: The statute, as amended in 2025, lets a jury punish the conduct, not only repay losses.
• Fees: The prevailing party can recover reasonable attorney fees and costs.
• Profit motive: Doing it for financial gain is carved out as a third-degree felony on a first count.

The statute is built for internet posts and electronic spread, not for a sealed exhibit. That gap is the whole fight. Bitman wants the court to treat a threatened public filing as the same kind of harm. Evans says he asked for in-camera lodging, not a press dump, and that the 2024 deal already required deletion.

A Separate Order Already Branded Him Vexatious

Thompson’s representative, Jami Schlicher, pointed past the Broward file to another federal courtroom. She said a federal court recently declared Evans a vexatious litigant and described his filings as serial and spurious, and that in dismissing one case with prejudice the court wrote it appeared the entire case was designed to harass defendants. Bitman has used that finding to argue Evans should lose easy access to the Broward clerk.

Evans’s own papers identify that order as the Aug. 3, 2026, decision in Evans v. Fitzgerald, No. 1:26-cv-20342, in the Southern District of Florida, entered under 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a). He says that dismissal is on appeal in the Eleventh Circuit, so it is not a final, unreviewed adjudication, and that Bitman was counsel for Fitzgerald in that case. He also says a list of fifteen pro se matters since 2025 mixes duplicates, a clerk numbering error, dismissals without prejudice that were refiled, settlements, an open case, and an order now on appeal. The Broward freeze, if granted, would still be a state-court screening order, not a carbon copy of the federal one.

Thompson Is Awake and the Luxor Dates Stay Dark

First responders were seen at Thompson’s Las Vegas house on Friday, Sept. 18. His representative did not confirm the cause of the hospitalization and asked for privacy. Bitman’s motion is the filing that puts a suicide attempt on the court record. An MGM Resorts spokesman said Scott is a beloved member of the Luxor and MGM Resorts family, and that the company was relieved to hear he is recovering.

THE HOSPITAL AND THE SHOWROOM

• Sept. 18 statement: Schlicher said Thompson was recovering in the hospital, receiving the care and support he needs, and that his family asked for privacy.
• Sept. 20 update: She said he remained hospitalized and under close medical care, was awake, breathing on his own, and continuing to improve, surrounded by family.
• The dates pulled: Friday, Saturday, and Monday shows at Luxor’s Atrium Showroom were canceled. The residency has been based there since November 2005 and is dark on Sundays.

Schlicher added that humor is still how Thompson connects, that he has joked with medical staff, and that fan notes, including stories of his comedy helping people through hard stretches, have meant a great deal during recovery. Evans, for his part, told the court he is not a bad person and that Thompson’s crisis is not his doing. The Broward motion is the live ask: keep Evans’s next paper out of the public file until a judge reads it first.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988. Help is also available through chat at that same service.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on court filings, public statements, and a medical crisis. It is informational only and is not medical, psychiatric, or legal advice, and it does not decide whether any email was extortion, whether any video still exists, or how any party should handle a lawsuit or a private recording. Anyone in crisis should contact a licensed mental-health clinician or use 988, and anyone facing a filing or a settlement demand should consult a licensed attorney in the relevant state. Names, quotes, dollar figures, and case statuses reflect the motions, dockets, statutes, and statements described above and can change with the next court order or medical update.