In the past couple of days, this story has developed completely. Most of the information we are bringing you is from Norm Clarke. This was quoted from his website:

An associate of Luxor headliner Criss Angel filed a police report Wednesday, alleging he was roughed up in the illusionist’s office warehouse.

Joe Monti, whose real name is Joe Safuto, told Vegas Confidential that Angel “flipped out” Wednesday during a disagreement over a magic trick.

Monti, who gave his age as 52 and said he is about 5-foot-5, said he has been a consultant for Angel for years and endured his verbal abuse before. “But I draw the line at violence,” Monti said in a telephone interview.

Monti said he was bruised when Angel “bumrushed me out the door” about 4 p.m.

Angel could not be reached for comment by deadline.

 

As more information came from the story we received news that hinted at Monti having audio of the incident. The Las Vegas Review-Journal released what it considers a snippet of an audio recording of the alleged altercation. The official transcript of the audio was also posted on Norm Clarke’s blog. Up untill now we have heard nothing from Criss’ end. His attorney just respondedthrough Robin Leach’s blog, Vegas Deluxe.

Ken Woloson, Criss’s attorney, told Vegas DeLuxe, “Criss Angel was in the process of firing Joe on Wednesday when Safuto became abusive, and Criss asked him to leave.”

His decision to fire Joe was in response to repeated complaints from co-workers and other magicians about Joe’s abusive and violent behavior and general ineptitude.

 

Criss Angel and Joe Monti have a long history together. Monti began working for Criss before the fourth season of Mindfreak. He served as a magic producer and talent for both Mindfreak and other projects such as Criss’ well put together MagicPlace.com.

Luke Dancy, another one of Criss Angel’s employees had this to say:

Over the last couple of months I’ve been Joe’s supervisor and he’s made my job very difficult by not showing up for work and feeling a certain form of entitlement here in the office by doing whatever he wanted. It was very obvious to Joe, and everyone in the office, that he was going to be terminated and it’s apparent that he set this up and had every intention to get whatever he needed to make Criss look bad.

There seems to be a lot of he said he said but it is apparent to me that Criss Angel is the good guy in all of this. We will have more information on this story as it develops.