Investigators are still interviewing witnesses over allegations singer Chris Brown stole a fan's iPhone in South Beach February 29, according to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.
"B****, you ain’t going to put that on no website," the volatile star reportedly said after 24-year-old Miami resident Christal Shanae Spann took a photo of Brown sitting in his black Bentley outside the nightclub Cameo. Spann told police Brown then snatched her iPhone and drove off, prompting police to submit evidence to the state on one count of "robbery by sudden snatching."
But more than five weeks have passed with no arrest warrant issued, and Rundle said Thursday in a statement that interviews of witnesses provided by Brown's attorney have yet to take place:
"In our investigation of the Chris Brown incident, we have taken the statements of our local witnesses and have just finished discussing with the lead Miami Beach Detective the additional witness information supplied by Mr. Brown’s attorney Mark Geragos.
We now must interview these individuals, some of whom may be from out of state, just as we do in every criminal investigation in order to uncover the truth in its entirety.”
Brown could face a felony charge for the incident, according to the Associated Press, which would complicate his legal status: the singer is on probation stemming from an assault on pre-Grammys assault on then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009.
The incredibly slow reach of the law isn't going unnoticed by locals.
"If I snatched a girl's iPhone outside a South Beach club, I'd go to jail," wrote 'Cocaine Cowboys' producer Alfred Spellman on Twitter. "But then again, I'm not Chris Brown."
Brown was in Miami the night of the alleged cell phone theft after (badly) lipsyncing during Univision's Premio Lo Nuestro music awards.