Actor Shia LaBeouf arrested again on battery charge in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Actor Shia LaBeouf, who was arrested and charged with battery after police say he punched several people outside a New Orleans bar earlier this month, was arrested again on Saturday and charged with one additional count of simple battery, court records show.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the new charge is connected to the Feb. 17 brawl outside the Royal Street Inn & R Bar, where LaBeouf is accused of repeatedly using homophobic slurs while hitting multiple people during Mardis Gras celebrations. Telephone and email messages left Saturday with LaBeouf’s attorney and New Orleans police weren’t immediately returned.

In the Feb. 17 incident, a video shows a shirtless LaBeouf shoving one person to the ground and hitting another person in the face, “causing his nose to possibly dislocate,” according to a New Orleans police report.

Jeffrey Damnit, a well-known local entertainer who police identified as Jeffrey Klein in the incident report, said he was one of the people attacked by LaBeouf.

“He hit me, he connected a few times with punches, he pushed me a few times,” Damnit told The Associated Press.

LaBeouf “just got nuts” trying to start fights and telling the entertainer and others that he would beat them up, Damnit said. He added that LaBeouf had pushed him from behind at the bar earlier in the night, shouting homophobic slurs and threatening his life.

Damnit and others subdued LaBeouf and tried to get him to leave the area, but he would not leave and became more aggressive, according to Damnit and the police report.

Police arrived at the bar around 12:45 a.m. on the morning of the city’s famous Fat Tuesday revelry and arrested LaBeouf.

LaBeouf has not entered a plea and declined to talk to reporters on Thursday after a New Orleans judge ordered him to return to drug and alcohol rehabilitation. During that hearing, LaBeouf’s attorney, Sarah Chervinsky, told the judge: “Frankly, being drunk on Mardi Gras is not a crime.”