HOUSTON ― An attorney for an ex-West Point cadet told jurors Tuesday that veteran R&B singer Patti LaBelle ordered her bodyguard to beat up the cadet as he waited for a ride home outside a Houston airport terminal, resulting in a brain injury that forced him to drop out of the military academy.
The lawsuit against LaBelle alleges the cadet, Richard King, was waiting for his family to pick him up outside one of the terminals at Bush Intercontinental Airport in March 2011, when LaBelle’s bodyguard and two others attacked him. King had just arrived in Houston, his hometown, while on spring break from West Point.
King sued LaBelle; Zuri Edwards, LaBelle’s manager and son; Efrem Holmes, her bodyguard; and Norma Harris, her hairdresser.
The trial is expected to last about a week. LaBelle, who was in court Tuesday, was expected to testify.
John Raley, one of King’s lawyers, told jurors his client had a blood alcohol level of 0.28, more than three times the legal limit for driving. But Raley said King was not driving and was not a danger to anyone.
Raley said King was minding his own business outside the airport terminal when he was attacked without provocation by the 400-pound Holmes, as well as by Edwards and Harris.
King later dropped out of West Point because of a traumatic brain injury he suffered after hitting his head on a concrete pillar during the attack, Raley said.
