Patti LaBelle’s body guard and hairdresser charged for assaulting West Point Cadet.
The LaBelle employees pummeled the West Point cadet’s head on the cement at the Houston airport. The cadet was later suspended for a year after the attack.
ABC Local reported:
It all began with a video showing a scuffle between Patti LaBelle’s entourage and a West Point cadet. At first, it was a case of he said, she said. Now two people have been charged with a crime.
We were the first ones with these charging documents on Friday afternoon. We can tell you LaBelle’s hairdresser and bodyguard have warrants out for their arrest; both are charged with assault even though the original story to police painted a much different picture.
There was no audio of the March 11 incident at Bush Intercontinental Airport, but according to court documents, the video speaks for itself. Patti LaBelle’s bodyguard, Efrem Holmes, originally told Houston police he was just defending LaBelle’s son. After watching the video, three months later, an officer reached a different conclusion.
In the video, you see West Point cadet Richard King in yellow on the phone near LaBelle’s limo outside Terminal C. King exchanges words with her son who is also her driver. Her son bumps King. The bodyguard then hits him and both he and LaBelle’s hairdresser, 63-year-old Norma Harris, push him into a concrete pillar, causing him to fall to the ground with a head injury.
LaBelle’s entourage was the first to contact police that day claiming assault. Attorney Geoffrey Berg says the new charges don’t back that up.
“Everybody is entitled to the presumption of innocence, but at this point in the court of public opinion, it looks like the weight of the evidence is on the side of the cadet,” Berg said.
