Lawsuit adds to comedian Katt Williams’ troubled time in Oakland

Cherilynn Abaye, who purchased four tickets to the Katt Williams comedy show at the Oakland Oracle Arena last Friday night, says she was excited to see him perform.

But after a string of bizarre events onstage that included Williams confronting a heckler in the crowd, Williams taking his own clothes off and Williams trying to fight at least three audience members, the act ended after just 10 minutes, leaving Abaye furious.

“I lost all respect for him,” said Abaye, 28, an Oakland resident who attended Friday’s show and owns most of Williams’ stand-up comedy DVDs.  Abaye said she spent $235 on four tickets for herself and friends and parking for the night.

But angry fans are only part of the trouble Williams got in himself into last week in Oakland. Just a few hours before his abruptly-ended standup show, Oakland attorney Pamela Y. Price announced that she had filed a lawsuit on behalf of Delvahn Mosley-Davis, an 18 year-old aspiring musician who says Williams assaulted him inside the comedian’s van last week.

Mosley-Davis was not present at the press conference, but Price said Williams attacked him while the van was parked outside the Oakland Marriott, where Williams was staying while in the city for his scheduled Oracle show. The civil suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, asks for unspecified damages and is also an effort to force Williams’ van to stay in Oakland as evidence, Price said.  “We know they [OPD] have searched the van–we are not sure if they kept the van,” said Price, who added that she believes blood evidence and the weapons used in the assault her client are still in the van.

“Obviously we are very concerned that Mr. Williams can come into Oakland, commit a crime, using a vehicle as a scene of a crime and then simply be allowed to leave Oakland,” Price said, “without having that vehicle impounded and without having the police take affirmative action to preserve the evidence.”

The suit names Williams and Live Nation, one of the country’s largest concert producers, as the defendants in the case. Representatives from Live Nation and Williams’ management agency did not return repeated phone calls from Oakland North.

Williams, 41, who is best known for his role as Money Mike in the movie Friday After Next, as well as an improv part on MTV’s comedy show “Wild ‘n Out” and a role on “My Wife and Kids,” was arrested by Oakland police after the incident Wednesday night.

According to Price, Mosley-Davis was invited into Williams’s RV, where the two men rapped to each other. Williams—who had “lured” Mosely-Davis into the van “for the purpose of attacking and humiliating him,” the legal complaint asserts, then turned violent, Price said. She said Williams and one of his bodyguards attacked Mosley-Davis with a liquor bottle and pointed a gun at him.

Her client suffered injuries to his head, neck, arms, torso and face, Price said, and was taken to Highland hospital, where he was treated for injuries and released.

Williams was not charged or detailed by police after the incident.  According to Oakland Police Department spokesperson Johnna Watson,  who sent out an email statement, “Williams was released from custody pending further investigation.”

For now, Price has not named a dollar amount she is seeking from Williams.  In the meantime, many of his concert fans are demanding refunds for Friday’s event.

“I want all of my money back, including parking,” said Abaye, who has still not received word on whether her refund attempt will be successful. “I mean, I don’t consider him a jerk for it. I just think he really must be going though something.”

For now, Williams’ next performance is scheduled for Nov. 23, at the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento.

Update, November 28: Comedian Katt Williams in more California trouble, reports say.

Image: Oakland attorney Pamela Price speaks with reporters on Friday during a press conference about the alleged attack of comedian Katt Williams and her client Delvahn Mosley-Davis.