Miss Patti LaBelle could be in a bit of hot water. The Grammy-winning songstress is embroiled in a lawsuit that alleges LaBelle ordered her bodyguard to beat up Richard King. King was a West Point cadet who claims he was just minding his own business at the Houston airport when he was assaulted by LaBelle’s security and two others. The brain injury that resulted forced the cadet to drop out of West Point.
An attorney for King, the ex-cadet and plaintiff, told jurors Tuesday that Patti LaBelle directed her bodyguard to beat him up as he waited for a ride home outside a Houston airport terminal, resulting in a brain injury that forced him to drop out of the military academy.
The formal suit names LaBelle; Zuri Edwards, LaBelle’s manager and son; Efrem Holmes, her bodyguard; and Norma Harris, her hair dresser.
King claims he was waiting for a ride at Bush Intercontinental Airport in March 2011, when LaBelle’s bodyguard when he was attacked without provocation by the 400-pound Holmes, as well as by Edwards and Harris.. King was coming back to his home town of Houston while on spring break from West Point.
The trial is expected to last about a week and Patti LaBelle herself is scheduled to testify.
Ok, so that’s King’s side of the story. He had to be doing something right? You just don’t go around ordering bodyguards to beat up people.
Geoffrey Bracken, one of LaBelle’s attorneys, responded to the allegations and claimed King was the aggressor who sucker punched Edwards. In an official statement LaBelle’s attorneys claim: King was yelling racial insults at the singer before he attacked her son and that King was told several times to step away from the singer’s vehicle after he tried to open a passenger door.
It looks like King forgot to mention a few things in his lawsuit, namely a blood alcohol level of 0.28 which three times the legal limit. John Raley, one of King’s lawyers, said King was not driving and was not a danger to anyone.
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Bracken was sure to stress to the jury how much King had been drinking and even pulled some Johnny Cochrane out of his hat with some theatrics. He displayed a large bottle of Jack Daniels he had placed in front of jurors, telling them “this is how much alcohol he had in his system.”
“This wouldn’t have ever happened if Mr. King had not been drinking,” he said.
Bracken also attempted to get the point across that King’s career at West Point was cut short not by his brain injury but by poor grades.
So far this case looks like a he said, she said but the first witness for King, a security expert, testified that Holmes’ response as a bodyguard was “aggressive and inappropriate”.
The case is still in progress and this whole mess is sure to be a PR nightmare for Patti LaBelle regardless of the result.
In case you were wondering, no monetary value has yet been established for the suit.
Featured image: Kyle Besler / Shutterstock.com
