New Orleans prosecutors file formal battery charges against Shia LaBeouf

Prosecutors opt not to pursue hate-crime charges over February incident despite anti-gay slurs captured on video

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

That move from the office of local district attorney Jason Williams means prosecutors opted to not pursue hate-crime charges against LaBeouf, the star of the Transformers film franchise, despite claims evidently supported by video that LaBeouf aimed anti-gay slurs at the alleged victims.

Police arrested LaBeouf after he purportedly punched two men and headbutted a third at the R Bar in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans at about 12.45am on 17 February – which was the city’s Mardi Gras holiday.

Bar staff had asked him to leave after becoming increasingly aggressive and insulting the men he battered 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 he was soon released, made to put up a $105,000 bond and told by a judge to enroll in substance abuse treatment.

One of the alleged victims, Nathan Thomas Reed, identifies as queer and another dresses in drag, the Guardian has previously reported. The latter of those men, named Jeffrey Damnit, captured a cellphone video of LaBeouf directing the homophobic insult “faggot” at him outside the bar. And Damnit had previously spoken openly about his hope that prosecutors would charge LaBeouf under a state law which allows for enhanced penalties against those who victimize others based on the “actual or perceived” basis of sex or gender, among other categories.

Damnit’s video was among multiple ones that recorded aspects of the circumstances surrounding LaBeouf’s arrest.

Attorney Michael Kennedy, who represents Damnit, said on Thursday: “The fact that the district attorney’s office is moving forward with this case when there is overwhelming evidence that a crime was committed should not be a surprise to anyone – because being a celebrity does not buy you special treatment in New Orleans .”

The Guardian has contacted Reed as well as a lawyer for 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 what is known as a bill of information filed by Williams on Thursday morning. The Guardian reviewed the document, which was filed hours before a court hearing set for people who have been arrested on allegations of a crime 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 preceding 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 which enables people to use a reasonable amount of violence to prevent certain offenses against them.

The charges pending against LaBeouf in New Orleans – where he bought a home in December – are not his first experience with the US’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.