Gerard Butler Facing 6 Months in Jail for Paparazzi Beat-Down
Movie star hunk Gerard Butler has been charged with misdemeanor criminal battery over an incident involving a paparazzi-photographer last year. If convicted, he could be sentenced up to 6 months in jail. The incident occurred the night of October 7th, 2008 after a premiere party for “RockNRolla.” Allegedly, the photographer was trailing Gerard’s limo for hours, verbally harassing Butler whenever he got in and out of the limo, and even was chasing people through the streets.
Gerard’s manager Alan Siegel said the actor was forced to have his driver stop the car he was riding in after the particular photographer repeatedly sped through red lights and almost struck two pedestrians. Butler was said to have then punched him several times, bloodying the photographer’s lip. Police filed a report against the “300” actor over the scuffle. The Los Angeles City Attorney has already filed legal charge against him on Wednesday, May 13th, and Gerard is due in court for an arraignment on June 10th. His attorney, Blair Berk, has said that Butler is not required to, and won’t, appear in court on the matter.
I don’t blame him for punching someone who was following him! It would have been cool if he yelled “This… is… Sparta!” right before knocking the pap in the mouth!!
Images Via: Getty, INF
This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 10:36 am and is filed under Celebrity Crime, Celebrity Gossip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Vanessa January 26th, 2010 at 3:39 am
Why is it celebs get in trouble for attacking the paparazzi when in all retrospect the vultures are stalking those celebs and get what’s coming to them? If they don’t want to be attacked then stop attacking celebs with your camera! Let’s pretend we live in the real world here (not Tinsel Town) and say you have some psycho perve stalking you 24/7, you call the police & normally they would arrest the lunatic. However in Tinsel Town it seems like a Twilight Zone where everything is backwards. A place where the laws seem to favor the side of the stalking Paparazzi. Here’s a novel idea, how about charging the vultures with some fines for stalking. Maybe then they would think twice about getting up in someone’s face and shoving a blinding camera light at them. Sure, they are celebs but they are PEOPLE first and foremost. Yes, we all like to see snapshots of our favorite celebs but when it comes down to news stories like this I say the Paparazzi had it coming to them. There are ways to take pictures tastefully and respectfully and maybe if the laws were on the side of the (usually) innocent celeb defending themselves we wouldn’t hear about total B.S. like this. The only one that should be required to spend any amount of time in jail is the jerk that was shoving the camera in Gerard Butler’s face. At the most all Gerard should have to do is pay a fine for defending himself just to shut the “pigs” up. I have no respect for the law in Hollywood when they defend the Paparazzi who started the fight instead of defending the people who are being harassed and stalked. Ever see the movie Paparazzi? Great flick & one that the vultures in Hollywood should watch and take to heart the next time their shoving a camera in someone’s face.