Aspen – A Grammy-winning singer’s next scheduled appearance here won’t be like his usual romantic rendezvous with Mariah Carey that quickly become tabloid fodder.
Instead, Luis Miguel, whose legal name is Luis Miguel Gallego Basteri, finds himself named as a defendant in a misdemeanor assault case after he was arrested last month for punching a barman at the St. Regis Resort Aspen in the face.
Miguel, 35, was sitting at a table with friends inside the four-star hotel’s regal lounge when William Hayward Hardy, 49, approached his table and asked him to sing a “few bars,” according to a police report.
“Miguel answered, ‘For a thousand dollars,’ and Hardy said something like, ‘I wouldn’t give you fifty cents,'” the police report said.
The internationally known singer has sold over 50 million records, won four Grammy awards plus four additional Latin Grammy awards, and he is the only Latin American performer to have two platinum albums in the United States.
Nicknamed “El Idolo” (The Idol), Miguel has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
About 20 minutes after Hardy was instructed to leave the table, which he did, Miguel’s bodyguard, Julio Cesar Camera, approached Hardy and his female companion who was speaking with Jason Randall Moan, a bartender/server at the lobby bar. Camera put Hardy in a “choke hold,” the police report said
As Moan tried to separate the bodyguard from Hardy, who police later noted smelled of alcohol and had bloodshot and watery eyes, Miguel began tugging on the barman’s arms to try to stop him.
“Moan stated that he pushed Miguel away from him, and Miguel stated, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ Moan (said he told) Miguel, “I don’t care who you are, you don’t fight in here.'”
Miguel then struck Moan in the face with a closed fist, the report said.
Witnesses told police Miguel’s punch was the only one thrown during the altercation. Another bartender, Wesley Kubica, told police Miguel was irate, yelling at his bodyguard, “You should be going at them, that’s what I pay you for!”
Miguel and Camera both denied a punch was ever thrown, police said.
Moan, the victim, said the punch bruised his face, but the hotel has asked him not to speak about the incident with the press.
Police issued Miguel a municipal summons for assault and battery. He is scheduled to appear in municipal court on March 3.
