Isaiah Lee pleads no contest to charges

The man accused of attacking Dave Chappelle on stage at the Hollywood Bowl has been jailed for 270 days after pleading ‘no contest’ to the charges.

Isaiah Lee was charged with misdemeanor counts of battery and entering a restricted area during a live event following the assault during the Netflix Is A Joke festival in May.

Chappelle was thrown to the ground by the stage invader, before security swooped in and removed him. Lee was taken away in an ambulance with a broken arm after the scuffle.

Jamie Foxx and Chris Rock also came to the aid of their fellow comic, and keep the audience entertained.

In an interview from jail, 24-year-oldLee claimed he was acting in protest at Chappelle’s jokes about transgender and homeless people – although at the time of the assault he was reported to have said he wanted to highlight the gentrification driving his grandmother out of her Brooklyn home.

Even before yesterday’s sentencing Lee was already behind bars on remand for an unrelated charge of of stabbing his roommate at a halfway house last year.

The publicity that followed the Chappelle incident helped lead to Lee’s identification as a suspect in that attack, prosecutors said. 

Lee originally pleaded not guilty to attacking the comedian. His sentence last night was announced by the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office and widely reported in US media

Published: 15 Dec 2022