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A man charged with attacking comedian Dave Chappelle on stage at the Hollywood Bowl in May has been sentenced to 270 days in jail after pleading no contest.
Isaiah Lee, 24, was charged with two misdemeanor counts – one for battery and one for entering a restricted area during a live event.
He’ll be held at the county jail, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office told Deadline.
The plea came about 1 1/2 months after a judge rejected the defense’s request for a diversion program that could have resulted in the dismissal of Lee’s charges.
He attacked Chappelle while he was performing at the Netflix Is a Joke Festival on May 3, when he rushed the stage and tried to ram the comedian to the ground.
Isaiah Lee will serve 270 days in jail after pleading no contest after attacking Dave Chappelle. He was charged with battery and one count of entering a restricted area during a live event
The incident took place during Chappelle’s set on the last day of a four-night stint at the Hollywood Bowl that was part of the ‘Netflix Is a Joke’ comedy festival
Lee had been accused of charging towards Chappelle with a replica handgun containing a large blade that folded out of it similar to a pocket knife.
The comedian was able to sidestep Lee, and was unharmed. Security forcefully subdued Lee who was later arrested by the LAPD and taken to hospital with a broken arm.
The next day Chapelle released a statement in which the event was described as ‘unsettling and unfortunate.’
‘As unfortunate and unsettling as the incident was, Chappelle went on with the show,’ the statement read.
‘Jamie Foxx and Chris Rock helped calm the crowd with humor before Chappelle introduced the last and featured musical guests for the evening.’
Chappelle later said he was able to speak to the attacker before he was taken away by paramedics.
The comedian claims that Lee had told him that he’d carried out the attack to raise awareness of the plight of his grandmother in Brooklyn – who was displaced from her home due to gentrification.
However, Lee gave an interview from inside jail where he said he had been ‘triggered’ by Chappelle’s jokes about transgender and homeless people.
Lee told The New York Post that he was not amused by Chappelle’s repartee.
‘I identify as bisexual and I wanted him to know what he said was triggering,’ Lee said.
Lee is accused of storming the Hollywood Bowl stage with a foldout knife and trying to tackle Chappelle in front of the audience on May 3
Lee said Chappelle’s jokes ‘triggered’ him and that is why he launched the attack. Chappelle was able to sidestep his attacker and avoid injury
Security guards chased and overpowered Lee, who was arrested and taken away in an ambulance with a broken arm after the scuffle
‘I wanted him to know that next time, he should consider first running his material by people it could affect.’
He said he was excited to see Chappelle’s show, being recorded live for Netflix, but grew increasingly angry at the content.
Lee said he had been homeless before, and that the jokes made him emotional and upset.
‘I’m also a single dad and my son is five,’ he told the paper.
‘It’s a struggle and I wanted Dave Chappelle to know it’s not a joke.’
He said his breaking point came when another comedian in the show’s lineup make a joke about pedophilia, which Lee said brought back memories of being molested when he was 17.
When asked about reports that he suffers from mental health issues, Lee said they were ‘wrong’ and ‘inaccurate.’
However at the time, his lawyer said he had been receiving mental health services.
Lee also faces attempted murder charges, after the confrontation led officials in Los Angeles to discover that he was the suspect of another crime.
He was accused of stabbing his roommate, Dijon Washington, back in December 2021 at a ‘transitional housing program’ generally reserved for homeless individuals.
The Los Angeles district attorney, George Gascon, is crediting the publicity surrounding Lee’s attack on Chappelle with helping the victim identify his alleged attacker.
The 24-year-old said that he was excited to see Chappelle’s show, being recorded live for Netflix, but grew increasingly angry at the content
Lee had been accused of charging towards Chappelle with this replica handgun containing a large blade that folded out of it similar to a pocket knife
Lee also faces attempted murder charges after the confrontation led officials in Los Angeles to discover that he was accused of stabbing his roommate, Dijon Washington in December 2021
‘The publicity generated by the attack on Mr. Chappelle helped police solve this crime,’ said Gascon in a statement in May.
‘The incident that occurred at the Hollywood Bowl was misdemeanor conduct and rightfully referred to the City Attorney’s Office.
‘Based on the nature and severity of the December attack, Lee is now facing felony charges which my office will prosecute.’
Lee pleaded not guilty to the stabbing charge and appeared before Judge James R. Dabney in Los Angeles Superior Court at the Foltz Criminal Justice Center in September.
Washington said at a hearing for the stabbing that Lee had grown increasingly erratic in the months before the attack against Chappelle.
Lee would write strange notes in their transitional living facility where he bragged about using marijuana and insulted Washington’s dead brother.
‘He was saying, ‘I’m smoking your brother,’ bragging about how much money he’s making – whatever he was doing – how much weed he was smoking,’ Washington testified.
‘It didn’t make sense to me. He knew my brother had passed away few months before that. It was disrespectful.’
Tensions grew until December 2 last year when Washington laughed at Lee’s notes.
‘What the f**k are you looking at?’ Lee asked him before rushing Washington.
‘We started tussling, and I got stabbed’ Washington testified. Lee then fled the home.
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