Diva Patti LaBelle Counter-Sues West Point Cadet Over Airport Altercation
Soul diva Patti LaBelle has filed a counter-lawsuit against a former West Point cadet who claimed her bodyguards beat him up. LaBelle's suit says the man started the incident by talking to her in a racially and sexually offensive way.
Former West Point senior cadet Richard King filed suit first, claiming LaBelle's driver and body guards attacked and assaulted him for no reason at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport back in March. He says he suffered a concussion that ended his football career at West Point.
LaBelle has countered with a lawsuit of her own. She claims King was drunk when he tried to get into her limousine using racist and obscene language, and he started the fight when he punched her driver in the face.
Her lawsuit says her group believed she was in danger and they "used the degree of force that was reasonably necessary to repel King's violent and unprovoked attack."
The episode, much of it captured on security video tape, shows King being hit, pushed and shoved by two men and a woman in the terminal's passenger pickup area.
The video has no audio however, so there's no way of knowing what was said by the combatants.
King was suspended from West Point after the incident, but he says he's going to do everything possible to return.
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