Bobby Brown charged with battery after allegedly hitting Whitney Houston

Jet, Jan 5, 2004

Singer Bobby Brown was recently charged with battery three days after he allegedly bit his wife, singer Whitney Houston.

Fulton County (GA) police spokesman Kurtis Young said Brown, 34, turned himself in. Brown and Houston left Fulton County Magistrate Court together after they and their attorneys met with police.

Brown is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing Jan. 7.

Brown's lawyer, Maurice Bennett, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his client and Houston were trying to work out the problem "as husband and wife."

Houston declined comment, but her lawyer, Mark Trigg, echoed Bennett's comments, saying, "She is trying to resolve the matter privately."

Police responded to a 911 domestic abuse call from Houston. She did not give her name and sounded calm, the New York Post reported.

"She just asked police to come to her address," a source quoted in the Post said.

When police arrived at her home in Alpharetta, GA, near Atlanta, around 8:30 that night, she told them Brown had "confronted" her when she came home earlier that night.

He then beat her during an argument, the New York Post reported. "Mr. Brown stated he was going to beat her ass,' and then struck the left side of her face with an open right hand," according to the police report, obtained by the New York Post.

Houston "had visible injuries to her face, which included a bruise on her left cheek approximately 1 inch in diameter, and a cut upper lip (on the inner upper portion of her mouth)," the report says, the New York Post reported.

After the fight, Brown then went to the airport for a flight to Los Angeles, the police report said.

Simple battery is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Normally, on a first offense in domestic violence cases, the charge is dismissed if the defendant undergoes counseling.

The couple wed in July 1992 and have a daughter, Bobbi Kristina.