WASHINGTON: Singer Chris Brown’s assault trial was delayed on Friday, when a Washington, DC, judge put off a verdict for the R&B artist’s bodyguard whose trial on the same charge is scheduled to conclude first.
District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Patricia Wynn said she will need until Monday to consider the evidence and decide the verdict in the misdemeanor assault trial of bodyguard Christopher Hollosy, accused of assaulting a man who tried to photograph Brown.
“I’m not ready to return a verdict now,” Wynn said, after testimony concluded on Friday in the trial, which is being decided by a judge rather than a jury.
Hollosy is accused of punching in the face a man who angered Brown after trying to snap a photo of the singer outside a hotel on October 27, 2013. He is charged with misdemeanor assault.
Brown, who faces the same charge, is accused of hitting the same man seconds before Hollosy did.
Brown’s trial is scheduled to begin immediately after the judge’s verdict in the Hollosy trial. The decision to delay that verdict for three days pushes back Brown’s case.
Brown, 24, wore a dark suit as he was escorted into court by marshals on Friday but said nothing and was escorted back to a jail cell minutes later.
Parker Adams, 20, the man who tried to photograph Brown, said he suffered a broken nose and other injuries to his face.
Adams and two other witnesses, his girlfriend and a limousine driver, testified on Thursday that Brown punched Adams. Then, Hollosy stepped in and hit Adams with a second, harder punch that broke his nose, Adams said.
Hollosy’s attorney, Bernie Grimm, argued Adams pressed for criminal charges against Brown and Hollosy to collect money from them in a lawsuit. Adams claims a total of $3 million in compensatory and punitive damages from both men in a civil lawsuit pending in Washington, DC.
“Justice for him has dollar signs on it,” Grimm said.
Brown is expected to face the same witnesses and similar evidence in the assault charge pending against him.
If Brown is convicted, he faces a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The conviction also could be a violation of his probation after a 2009 conviction in Los Angeles for assaulting his former girlfriend, the singer Rihanna. The probation violation could bring him an additional four years in prison.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 21st, 2014.
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