The Crime You Didn't Know CSI's Wallace Langham Committed

Wallace Langham was charged with committing a hate crime and battery on November 1, 1999, after he was accused of assaulting a gay tabloid reporter while using homophobic slurs two months earlier, as the New York Post reported. Hayley Sumner, a rep for Langham, said at the time that the reporter, who was a freelancer for the publication Star, approached Langham's girlfriend in a Hollywood supermarket and made offensive remarks about her tattoos. After noticing the situation, Langham intervened in defense of his partner, at which point the reporter allegedly began to provoke the actor until a fight broke out, though she denied Langham used gay slurs, the spokesperson said. 

According to Sumner, the reporter purposefully started the fight knowing who Langham was in an attempt to extort the actor, The Associated Press reported. "Mr. Langham intends to request that extortion charges be filed against the purported victim. It is despicable for an individual to provoke a fight and then characterize it as a hate crime in order to leverage the incident for his personal financial gain," she said.

The 35-year-old man, who was not identified at that time because the Los Angeles Police Department protects the identity of hate crime victims, was treated for an injured jaw and some bruises, according to the New York Post. The Star said that the reporter was not writing for the company at the time of the incident and declined to comment, per the report. 

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