Russell Brand Gets Community Service For Destroying Photographer’s iPhone

Russell Brand’s latest scuffle with authorities could see the actor performing a duty he’s quite comfortable with: advocating for those suffering from addiction.

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A New Orleans judge has ordered the 37-year-old actor to perform 20 hours of community service and pay $500 in court fees, in charges relating to an scuffle with a photographer in New Orleans March, the Associated Press reports. The case will be dropped if he completes the community service by Aug. 31.

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Brand was arrested after allegedly confronting a photographer who--along with several others--was following the actor’s car. Brand is accused of throwing the man’s iPhone through a window, after the man grabbed Brand’s hand, fearing the actor would strike him in the groin.

“The victim felt the offender pull something off his lap and suddenly realized that the offender had taken his cellphone,” reads a police report concerning the incident.

His attorneys believe that Brand, who has campaigned on behalf of those suffering from addiction, may be able to count the charity work he already does toward his hours of community service.

“Some of it [the community service] may be abroad in England. Some of it may be in California,” Brand’s lawyer, Robert Glass, said at the hearing. Brand was not present.

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Brand has previously had run-ins with the law, such as in 2010, when he was accused of attacking a photographer at a Los Angeles airport. He was deported from Japan last year while trying to visit Katy Perry, his wife at the time.

As for this more recent incident, Brand explained his actions via Twitter shortly after turning himself into police in March:

"Since Steve Jobs died I cannot bear to see anyone use an iPhone irreverently, what I did was a tribute to his memory."

Brand recently launched BrandX With Russell Brand on FX, which airs Thursdays at 11 p.m.