Busta Rhymes to pay assault victim $75K

NEW YORK, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Hip-hop artist Busta Rhymes has been ordered to pay $75,000 to a man he and a bodyguard allegedly assaulted in upstate New York in 2003.

The New York Post said Luigi Marano, a Brooklyn, N.Y., hearing officer, awarded the damages this week to Alex Duncan, a 32-year-old Albany, N.Y., man, who claims the rapper and his bodyguard beat him with bottles and punched him during a break in a rap concert at the State University of New York-Albany on Sept. 13, 2003.

"It's all right," Duncan told the Post about the officer's decision. "I wanted something to come out of it. I don't even go to parties anymore, because there's always someone asking, 'What happened to that Busta Rhymes case?'"

The newspaper said Rhymes's attorney, Robert Kalina, did not attend the damages hearing or return a phone call seeking a comment on the case.