Atlanta - One of pop singer Justin Bieber’s bodyguards has been arrested and charged with stealing a photographer's $10 000 camera outside an arcade in an Atlanta suburb, police said on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old guard, Hugo Hesny, was outside a children's play centre and party business called the Funhouse late on Tuesday when he warned a photographer that he was too close to the teenage entertainer, the Sandy Springs Police Department said in a statement.
“A confrontation ensued and the photographer attempted to leave the location, but at some point, the security guard caught up and took the camera,” the police statement said.
The incident was the latest in a string of legal problems involving 19-year-old Bieber, who last month was charged with driving under the influence, resisting arrest and using an expired licence after Miami Beach police say they caught him drag racing. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Local authorities on Wednesday released to the media several hours of video surveillance footage of Bieber while he was in police custody, but clips of him giving a urine sample were withheld for review by a judge.
In the latest run-in with law enforcement, Bieber's guard put the camera into a Cadillac Escalade, which police said they stopped as its driver entered a house in the area rented by the Canadian singer.
The guard and the driver were arrested and charged with felony theft, but charges were later dropped against the driver after it was determined he did not know about the camera snatching, police said.
Hesny admitted to police that he took the camera but said he only meant to delete pictures from it, not keep it, according to a police report.
Police said they recovered the camera, as well as a small amount of marijuana and “small pipes commonly used to smoke marijuana” from inside the Escalade.
“Due to the small amount, no charges were filed related to the marijuana,” police said.
Bieber, whose private life has taken a tumultuous turn in the past year, also was charged last month with assaulting a limousine driver in Toronto in December. - Reuters