A rapper who goes by the name Lil Xan – in honor of the sedative Xanax – used his microphone to smash a guest in the head at a party at Royale, 279 Tremont St. in the Theater District last fall – and then followed up by kicking the guy in the head as well, a police detective told the Boston Licensing Board this morning.
The alleged beatdown by a performer on stage against somebody standing on the dance floor was at the same Harvard/Yale party on Nov. 23 after which a Black bouncer went after some drunken, racist students hurling slurs at him and dragged two of them down the rain-soaked street.
Lil Xan, a.k.a., Nicholas Diego Leanos, 28, of Redland, CA, was arraigned on March 3 on two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (one for the microphone, one for the shod foot). He was released on personal recognizance, according to court records, which show he is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing on May 2, which he will be allowed to participate in via Zoom.
According to the BPD detective who investigated the case, Leanos hit the man in the head twice with his microphone and kicked him in the head, and then fled down an emergency stairway and almost out onto the street, except somebody there yelled at him that, hey, he’s not supposed to open that door, so he went back into the Royale building and found another way to flee. The Crimson identified the victim as a Harvard sophomore.
Royale co-owner George Kalevas said he was called down to the Royale kitchen around 1:30 a.m., where he found the student, conscious, but “out of it” and his father. “I called 911 right away,” he said.
Leanos “assaulted the victim for no reason,” the detective said.
“I think the performer just snapped,” Kalevas agreed. “This was all out of the blue, nothing led up to this.” The Crimson reported one video of the incident “appears to show the student giving Leanos the middle finger shortly before the assault started.”
In response to a question from board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce for some information about Lil Xan, Kalevas acknowledged “I didn’t know anything about him,” except his stage name – “Little Xanax, that’s all I know.”
Innocent, etc.
