Breaking
Silence

Latour, his legal name spelled differently, changed only to simplify his world of entertainment. Lature was born July 28, 1972, in Detroit, Michigan. He grew up on the city’s west side, near the intersection of Seven Mile and Greenfield Road, where life in Detroit was complicated and separated by one’s known identity from either the west side or the east side. This was determined by the split created by one major street, which ran north and south through Woodward Avenue. Lature’s mother, a single mother who grew up in the Jeffries Project in Detroit, had no choice but to literally fight in the streets day in and day out, mostly because of her appearance caused by the mixed heritage of her parents. Her father, African American, with some Native American blood, and her mother, full-blooded Filipino. During World War II, her parents, who met and married in Manila, Philippines, decided to raise their family in a less segregated part of the country than where her father was born and raised in Marlin, Texas.

In fact, he chose Detroit, Michigan, as a safer homestead. However, he had no idea that Detroit was rough for other reasons. Maybe not the same segregation problems that were taking place in the South at the time, but some serious, rough streets for his children to grow up on. Robin, Lature’s mother, wanted to raise her son in a calmer and more safe environment in which she wouldn’t be taking place in Detroit.

At the time, Latour was eight years old. The year was 1980, and times in the South had simmered down a bit. So Robin packed up and moved to Houston, Texas with Lature and Joe. Fast forward five years, Robin was still employed as a nightclub owner on the south side of Houston. She raised Lature in the nightclub business, so there was no doubt that he’d grow up to love and admire the world of nightlife entertainment. That’s precisely what he did. When Lature was 20 years old, he left Texas after attending Texas Tech University for his first two years straight out of high school and returned to his birthplace, Detroit. A short while back, living in Detroit with the assistance of a cousin who happened to be a popular local on-air radio talent, Lature found a calling, and he, too, became an on-air radio personality in Detroit. Before long, after changing the spelling of his name to L-A-T-O-U-R from its government spelling of L-A-T-U-R-E, coining his on-air handle, Latour became one of the most popular voices and faces in the Detroit metropolitan nightlife entertainment world. After creating his own concert and party promotions company in the 90s and expanding his brand throughout the Midwest to Arizona, he ultimately landed in Los Angeles, California, becoming a promotional staple in the glamorous Hollywood nightlife where he forged many celebrity relationships. Latour successfully continued building and branding his company. He started doing promotional representations of some celebrities with whom he became friends. One of these celebrities was a member of a very popular male R&B group signed to P. Diddy’s Bad Boys Records, known as Day 26. The member, Brian Angel Andrews, and Latour had built a tight business relationship because Latour could book and promote Brian as a solo artist separate from the group by booking appearances and performances for him throughout Latour’s nightlife network of clubs around the country in multiple markets.

Brian, who was born and raised in Houston, convinced Latour to bring his network of celebrity clientele to Houston for promotional appearances and a new revenue flow. Because Latour once lived in Houston as a teenager, he had some idea how the nightlife in Houston would be hungry for what he could bring to the city with his many Hollywood celebrity relationships. Latour decided to give it a shot, so he set up shop and leased a townhome in downtown Houston, which he converted into an office for his promotions company, Latour Entertainment Group. Not long after, the office was up and running for a few months, and his events were turning a profit. Then, he packed up his wife and two kids and moved them into a gated community just 30 minutes from the office downtown in the suburb of Houston near Cypress off of 290 and Highway 6.

Latour’s wife was a housewife and a mother who never bothered him about being away from home as much as he was. He provided a fantastic lifestyle for her and their family. So there was never really any need to question him about his comings and goings. Unbeknownst to his wife, Latour had many extramarital affairs. One was with a woman named Trina, who just happened to be the wife of his new celebrity business partner, Brian Angel. While Brian was traveling with Day 26 and the many other solo appearances Latour had booked for Brian around the country, Latour and Trina began to spend an incredible amount of time together, ultimately blooming the time spent into a full-blown affair, while Latour’s personal assistant, Adrienne, and his other business partner, Abe, acted as liaisons, fielding calls and text messages between Latour and Trina in efforts to keep their relationship from being discovered by their significant others. It wouldn’t be long before Trina wanted more than just the title side piece with Latour. When Latour denied her request for more exclusivity. When her request was denied, she began to put her plan into action with the old adage saying, if I can’t have him, she can’t either, and what a perfect place to execute your plan. Harris County, Texas. Here’s how it happened.

When her request was declined, they remained friends, and all decided to go out one evening: Latour, his wife, and Trina. Trina became extremely intoxicated and ended up passing out in the back of the car while Latour, his wife, and another couple that had just met went into another club. The following day, Trina was still asleep on the couch. Latour had to fly out early to go to an event he was hosting with Brian. Latour and Trina hung out the next day, eating pizza and shopping. In two days, Trina filed a report saying Latour had assaulted her. When Latour went to the police department, he stated he had never had any sexual relations with her whatsoever. That’s due to the fact that on the night in question, he knew with a 1,000% certainty there was no sexual relationship. and that if by any chance, per this allegation, she had gone and had a rape kit done, it would prove that, however, was actually no kit done, no nurse’s testimony or anything, that there would be no evidence of any sex having occurred between her and Latour on the night in question.

So Latour would be automatically excluded. Well, that wasn’t the case. She never went to the hospital. She never went to a doctor. She never went to any clinic. She actually waited days upon days before she made this actual allegation. Unbeknownst to me, I’m thinking that, you know, if there were actually a rape kit then Latour would be excluded. But there wasn’t. So Latour lied about the affair. Unbeknownst to him, 54 days after the fact, 54 days after the allegation was initially made, she could turn in clothes to a detective handling the case. And he just accepted this as evidence. TWO months, those could have come from any night. There was no picture of her wearing those clothes from that night we all hung out. There was nothing. There was no indication that those clothes came from that night. But they were accepted as evidence as clothes having been worn on that night because she said it. And that’s what they used as evidence against me in this case. She also took pictures of herself with her camera of some bruise that she had on her thigh, you know, days and days later, and turned them into this cop, who said that the bruise had come from that night from her jeans. Detective Keith McMurtry accepted that as evidence.

Now, my attorney did impeach Detective McMurtry on the stand, asking him, well, when she came to interview, you had a camera in your desk, right? He said yes. Well, why didn’t you use your camera at that moment and take pictures of her? Why accept pictures that she took with her camera from whenever she took those pictures? Evidence supporting her allegation was that the bruise came from that night in question, which was submitted as evidence in the trial. Yeah. This is the corruption that the Harris County district attorney will go to in order to get a conviction. He never looked at the address of the alleged location, the strip club.

A strip club technically never existed because the actual location that he testified to wasn’t a strip club ever. It was a Burger King. The location she gave to the detective has always been a Burger King. The detective never went to the address provided. Latour’s mother contacted the city department and got the city planning and development sheet showing that that location was a Burger King. On cross-examination of Keith McMurtry, Latour’s attorney never impeached him about the location. She did ask him, “You never went to the location, didn’t you? He said no. She said, as a matter of fact, you never left your desk or interviewed anyone outside of Trina and Latour about this actual case. He said, yes, I never talked to anybody else. I never went to the location. I never spoke to anybody who worked at this alleged strip club. I never talked to Latour’s wife. I never talked to Abe. I never talked to Latour’s assistant, Adrian. Never talked to anybody but Trina and Latour. He admittedly never investigated this case because he didn’t even believe the allegations. It wasn’t until these clothes were turned in 54 days after the fact that came that they were turned with Latour trace DNA on them. He decided, oh, well, if she had closed his DNA on him. He signed a statement saying he never had sex with her; how could she have clothes his DNA on him? He must have been lying. So, yeah, Latour lied about the affair because he knew on that night nothing happened. And what married man doesn’t lie about a fucking affair? Bill Clinton lied to 300 million Americans on national television.

Until his sperm showed up on a dress. After Latour was charged, he could post bail and be free. Latour was on bail for four years and five months, to be exact. He made 41 court appearances in that four years and five months. FOURTY-ONE court appearances. That’s nearly a court appearance every month for four years. It was when Latour missed my 42nd court appearance because of. a missed flight, stuck in traffic on the 405 Los Angeles, and headed to Houston. Latour had even checked in for his flight and had a boarding pass. And he missed the last flight out before his court date. Which meant Latour missed that court date the following morning. The judge broke my bond, issued a warrant for his arrest, issued a national fugitive blue warrant for Latour, had him picked up in Los Angeles, and extradited to Houston, raised bond to a quarter of a million dollars from the original $30,000 that it was, locked him up for 13 months, had a one-day trial, gave a life sentence.

Latour had never been to prison before and had been sentenced to life. They offered me four different plea deals. The original offer in 2010 was two years. Every year on bond, they made a different offer. The following year, it was six years. The year after that, it was 12 years. The final offer before the trial was 20 years. Latour refused every offer because he knew he did not have relations with Trina on the night in question.