New Orleans Prosecutors File Battery Charges Against Shia LaBeouf

New Orleans state prosecutors on Thursday filed formal misdemeanor battery charges against actor Shia LaBeouf, four months after police arrested him on allegations that he struck three men at a bar.

The decision by the office of District Attorney Jason Williams means prosecutors opted not to pursue hate-crime charges against LaBeouf, star of the Transformers film franchise, despite video evidence reportedly showing him using anti-gay slurs against the alleged victims.

Police arrested LaBeouf after he allegedly punched two men and headbutted a third at the R Bar in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans at approximately 12:45 a.m. on Feb. 17, which coincided with the city’s Mardi Gras holiday.

Bar staff had asked him to leave after he became increasingly aggressive and insulted the men with homophobic slurs, police said in sworn statements filed in court. LaBeouf was briefly jailed after being discharged from a hospital where he was taken at the time of his arrest, but was soon released after posting a $105,000 bond and was ordered by a judge to enroll in substance abuse treatment.

One of the alleged victims, Nathan Thomas Reed, identifies as queer, and another, Jeffrey Damnit, dresses in drag, The Guardian has previously reported. Damnit captured a cellphone video of LaBeouf directing the homophobic insult “faggot” at him outside the bar.

Damnit had previously spoken openly about his hope that prosecutors would charge LaBeouf under a state law allowing enhanced penalties for those who victimize others based on “actual or perceived” sex or gender, among other categories.

The Guardian has contacted Reed as well as attorneys for Damnit and LaBeouf for comment. The third alleged victim has said he is not commenting on the case.

An arraignment date for LaBeouf, at which he would enter a plea, was not immediately available.

LaBeouf’s charges were contained in a bill of information filed by Williams on Thursday morning, hours before a court hearing scheduled for people who have been arrested but not yet formally charged.

In an interview published 11 days after his arrest, LaBeouf told the YouTube outlet Channel 5 that “big gay people are scary” to him given his “traditional Catholic” faith.

He also alleged to Channel 5 that “three gay dudes [were] next to me, touching my leg” before the violence leading to his arrest. “I [got] scared,” LaBeouf added. “I’m sorry – if that’s homophobic, then I’m that.”

LaBeouf’s remarks were notable to some in New Orleans’s legal community in light of a state law that enables people to use a reasonable amount of violence to prevent certain offenses against them.

The charges pending against LaBeouf in New Orleans are not his first experience with the U.S. criminal court system. While being arrested in 2014 over allegations that he disrupted a Broadway show in New York City, LaBeouf faced accusations of insulting a police officer with the homophobic slur “fag.”

He was separately recorded saying police were racist and that a Black officer on the scene would go to hell during a 2017 disorderly conduct arrest in Savannah, Georgia. That resulted in an earlier court-mandated stint in rehab.