|
Rush Guitarist: See You in Court
03/10/2005 9:00 PM, E! Online
Charlie Amter
Time to break out the bad "Rush to judgment" puns.
Alex
Lifeson, guitarist for legendary Canadian prog-rock group Rush, now has
a date to answer for some seriously un-Canadian-like behavior.
Lifeson, whose real name is Alex Zivojinovich, is set to stand trial May
16 in Naples, Florida, on two felony assault charges stemming from a New
Year's party gone way too wild.
Prosecutors allege the
51-year-old rocker pushed a sheriff's deputy down the stairs of the
Naples Ritz-Carlton hotel and spat blood at another in the early hours
of 2004.
The guitarist was arrested and suffered a broken
nose in the fracas, which also involved his 33-year-old son, Justin.
A part-time resident of Naples, Alex Lifeson was initially
booked on six charges, four of which were felonies that could have
netted the fret-man 30 years in prison if found guilty. However, after
an investigation, the state attorney's office reduced the charges to two
counts of assault on a law enforcement official, third-degree felonies
punishable by up to five years in jail per count.
There's a
chance the court case can be avoided if a plea deal can be hammered out
by Apr. 27, the date of the next court hearing. But Lifeson's attorney,
Jerry Berry, told the Naples Daily News, "I think it's going to
trial."
According to authorities, the melee started when son
Justin refused to get off the stage as the house band was playing during
the hotel's New Year celebration.
When police tried to
forcibly remove him, daddy allegedly lost his cool and came out
swinging.
Per the Collier County Sheriff's Office, Lifeson
spat blood on a deputy's face and pushed a female deputy down a hotel
stairwell. He was so rowdy and violent, one incident report contends,
that officers said they were forced to use a stun gun to subdue him.
Team Lifeson, however, claims it was deputies who instigated
the fight.
"I was singing 'Happy New Year's,' that's all I was
doing, singing to the whole crowd," Justin told Naples Daily News
last year. "Everyone was enjoying themselves. That's when someone
apparently started yelling for one of the security guards. There was no
violence on our part."
Or, as Alex Lifeson said at the time,
"They didn't like the way we were dancing, apparently."
|
