{"id":619312,"date":"2026-06-03T18:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/619312\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T18:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:02:08","slug":"shia-labeouf-pleads-guilty-to-battery-charges-over-new-orleans-bar-incident-shia-labeouf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/619312\/","title":{"rendered":"Shia LaBeouf pleads guilty to battery charges over New Orleans bar incident | Shia LaBeouf"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shia LaBeouf on Wednesday pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery charges<\/a> filed against the actor after his arrest over allegations that he struck three men at a New Orleans bar in February.<\/p>\n

After his plea in the city\u2019s criminal district courthouse, the Transformers film franchise star received a sentence of two years\u2019 probation, rehabilitation for alcohol abuse, sensitivity training and anger management classes.<\/p>\n

LaBeouf\u2019s attorney for the case, Sarah Chervinsky, said her client was now \u201clooking forward to focusing on family, work and new creative projects\u201d. She said the authorities\u2019 investigation into the matter established that the actor\u2019s arrest stemmed from \u201cnothing more than a minor \u2026 bar tussle\u201d on the morning of the Mardi Gras holiday in New Orleans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chervinsky denied her client\u2019s actions that day were driven out of \u201cbias\u201d, despite claims supported by video that LaBeouf aimed anti-gay slurs at the victims.<\/p>\n

Police arrested LaBeouf, 39, after he punched two men and head-butted a third at the R Bar in the New Orleans\u2019s Marigny neighborhood at about 12.45am on 17 February.<\/p>\n

Bar staff had told him to leave the premises after he became increasingly aggressive and insulted 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, required to put up a $105,000 bond and ordered by a judge to enroll in substance abuse treatment.<\/p>\n

The Guardian has previously reported that one of the alleged victims, Nathan Thomas Reed, identifies as queer and another dresses in drag. The latter of those men, named Jeffrey Damnit, recorded a cellphone video of LaBeouf directing the homophobic insult \u201cfaggot\u201d at him outside the bar.<\/p>\n

Damnit, whose legal last name is Klein, initially spoke<\/a> to news media of his hope that prosecutors would charge LaBeouf under a state law which allows for enhanced penalties against those who victimize others based on the \u201cactual or perceived\u201d basis of sex or gender, among other categories.<\/p>\n

Damnit\u2019s video was one of several that recorded aspects of circumstances surrounding LaBeouf\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

The formal charges to which LaBeouf pleaded guilty were filed by New Orleans district attorney Jason Williams\u2019 office on 21 May. They were contained in a charging document known as a bill of information.<\/p>\n

Chervinsky said LaBeouf \u2013 who bought a home in New Orleans in December \u2013 went to court on Wednesday \u201cwanting to take accountability for his part in what happened, and he has done so\u201d.<\/p>\n

Damnit\u2019s attorney, Michael Kennedy, said the outcome of LaBeouf\u2019s case was a reminder that everyone in New Orleans is \u201cequal, and we don\u2019t treat people differently based upon relative fame\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant in this matter has been given an opportunity to do better \u2013 to be better,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cIt is the hope of Mr Klein, and our entire team, that the substance abuse treatment, sensitivity training, and anger management will be taken seriously and that the defendant will make use of the skills he learns in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New Orleans case to which LaBeouf pleaded guilty is not his first experience with the US\u2019s criminal court system.<\/p>\n

He was arrested in 2014 over allegations that he disrupted a Broadway show in New York City, in the process purportedly insulting a police officer with the homophobic slur \u201cfag\u201d.<\/p>\n

LaBeouf was separately recorded saying police were racist \u2013 and that a Black officer on the scene would go to hell \u2013 during a 2017 disorderly conduct arrest in Savannah, Georgia. That led to another, earlier court-mandated stint in rehab.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> published less than two weeks after his New Orleans arrest, LaBeouf told the YouTube outlet Channel 5 that \u201cbig gay people are scary\u201d to him given his \u201ctraditional Catholic\u201d faith.<\/p>\n

He also alleged to Channel 5 that \u201cthree gay dudes [were] next to me, touching my leg\u201d, before the violence preceding his arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI [got] scared,\u201d LaBeouf added. \u201cI\u2019m sorry \u2013 if that\u2019s homophobic, then I\u2019m that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shia LaBeouf on Wednesday pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery charges filed against the actor after his arrest over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-619312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}