Texas Attorney: Patti LaBelle Had Bodyguard Beat Cadet
HOUSTON (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — An ex-West Point cadet's attorney has told jurors that veteran R&B singer Patti LaBelle ordered her bodyguard to beat up the cadet, who was waiting outside a Texas airport terminal for a ride home.
The attorney said Tuesday during opening statements in a civil trial in Houston federal court that the attack resulted in a brain injury that forced cadet Richard King to withdraw from the U.S. Military Academy.
In his lawsuit, King alleges that he was attacked without provocation by LaBelle's bodyguard and two others while waiting outside a Bush Intercontinental Airport terminal in 2011.
But Geoffrey Bracken, one of LaBelle's attorneys, told jurors that King threw the first punch.
LaBelle's attorneys have said King also hurled racial insults at the singer.
Last year a Texas jury acquitted LaBelle's bodyguard of misdemeanor assault. Evidence presented in that trial showed that on the day of the incident, King had a blood-alcohol level almost 3½ times above the Texas legal threshold for intoxication and didn't remember what happened the entire day.
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