Legal

Brown Drake altercation could lead to criminal and civil action

By | Published on Monday 18 June 2012

Chris Brown

Whether last week’s brawl involving the entourages of Chris Brown and Drake will lead to criminal charges remains to be seen, though there could be some interesting civil action. One of the women injured in the fracas has already pledged to sue, though her lawyer is currently working out who to list as defendants.

The incident occurred at New York’s WiP club last Thursday. Although details remain a bit sketchy, it’s thought that when Brown realised that both he and Drake were in the same club, he sent his rival music star a bottle of champagne as a goodwill gesture, there being some tensions between the two artists related to their respective past relationships with Rihanna. Drake, it seems, sent the goodwill gesture back to Brown with a rude note.

How rude we don’t know, but before the night was over eight club-goers had cuts and bruises as a result of a bottle-throwing fight that occurred between the two artists’ posses. Reps for both Brown and Drake played down their respective clients’ personal involvement in the altercation on Friday, both insisting it occurred as their stars were leaving the venue, though Brown’s lawyer has accused Drake of personally throwing “glassware”, and says he has evidence to that effect.

Celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos told the New York Post: “I have turned over evidence that it was Drake who instigated this. The evidence makes it clear that Chris is the victim in all of this. I believe the police are building a case against Drake and his thugs. Clearly, Drake was the instigator, and there is evidence he threw glassware”. Of course it’s important for Brown that Drake or his posse gets the blame for this fight, given he is still on probation from the whole ‘beating Rihanna unconscious’ incident.

Some have played down the seriousness of the fight, and with one eyewitness account describing how Drake’s entourage stripped off their shirts before confronting a departing Brown, it does all sound like an establishing scene in a mediocre R&B-infused Broadway musical. Though Lucy Pavlovsky, the Macy’s employee who needed 12 stitches after being injured in the brawl, and who now plans to sue, tells a different story.

She told reporters: “The bottle battle was completely across the VIP room. It was like a war zone. You had guys there, 300 pounds, 6-foot-5, throwing these bottles as hard as they can. It was wild enough that some people did not believe they were going to make it out of there”. Her legal rep, Javier Solano, added: “My plan is to sue anybody who threw a bottle and anybody who created that dangerous atmosphere”.

On the criminal side, rumours on Friday that the police wanted to arrest Drake turned out not to be true, though the club has reportedly been shut down while investigations continue, and there were new reports yesterday that various eye-witnesses had reported hearing gun fire during the fracas, though there is no actual evidence a firearm was present. Meanwhile, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has told local media she will convene an emergency meeting between her office, police and the nightlife industry “to send a clear message to all nightclub patrons that bottles cannot be used as weapons”.



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