After being involved in an altercation in June, Transformers star Shia LaBeouf has been charged with battery and theft. The 34-year-old actor was charged last week with one count of misdemeanor battery and one count of misdemeanor theft, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office has confirmed.
According to prosecutors, LaBeouf allegedly used force and violence against a man named Tyler Murphy during an altercation on June 12. The actor then left with Murphy’s hat. The complaint requests a warrant for LaBeouf’s arrest.
According to TMZ, LaBeouf and Murphy were involved in a verbal confrontation that got physical. Afterward, the actor allegedly grabbed Murphy’s cap and left. This isn’t the actor’s first brush with the law. In 2014, he was arrested outside New York City’s Studio 54 after he disrupted a performance of Cabaret while intoxicated. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to months of alcohol-abuse treatment.
In 2017, LaBeouf was arrested again after fighting with a man at his He Will Not Divide Us protest in New York, though the charges were later dropped. Later that year, he was arrested for public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and obstruction in Savannah, Georgia. While at the police station, he launched into a tirade that included racially-charged comments.
After pleading no contest to a disorderly conduct charge in October 2017, LaBeouf was found guilty of obstruction but was found not guilty of public intoxication. He was sentenced to probation for one year, including time served, and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine as well as seek therapy for his anger and substance use issues.
In 2018, he told Esquire that the incident in Georgia “was mortifying,” saying, “White privilege and desperation and disaster...It came from a place of self-centered delusion...It was me trying to absolve myself of guilt for getting arrested.”
LaBeouf will star in the upcoming Pieces of a Woman opposite Vanessa Kirby, directed by Kornél Mundruczó, which premiered at the 77th Venice International Film Festival on September 4. He was originally due to star in the psychological thriller film Don't Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde, but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts.
Source: LATimes