Spin Editor Files Assault Charges Against Shock-Rocker Manson

The editor of Spin magazine filed harassment and assault charges Wednesday in New York against shock-rock star Marilyn Manson, accusing the singer of enlisting his bodyguards to attack him after a Monday night concert at the city’s Hammerstein Ballroom.

Craig Marks, executive editor of the popular national rock publication, told police that the singer invited him backstage after the band’s sold-out performance, but when he got there Manson threatened his life, allegedly saying, “You know I can kill you, your whole family and everyone you know.”

Manson’s bodyguards then grabbed Marks by the throat, lifted him off his feet and threw him against a wall before he was able to escape, according to Marks.

“They had me by the neck up in the air. I was choking. I couldn’t breathe,” Marks said in a phone interview Thursday from Spin’s New York offices. “Manson oversaw the whole thing and then he said, ‘That’s what you get when you disrespect me.’ ”

Marks said the alleged assault was witnessed by Manson’s manager Tony Ciulla, a publicist for Interscope Records and Manson’s record company chief, John Malm, who was standing in a hallway.

Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, and his manager could not be reached Wednesday. Nothing Records President Malm and a representative for Seagram-affiliated Interscope, which has a joint venture deal with Nothing, declined comment.

Carmen Melendez, a spokeswoman for the New York Police Department, confirmed that Marks filed a complaint alleging that he was attacked by two members of Manson’s entourage and that the singer was present during the incident.

The motive for the alleged assault is unclear, but sources said it could have stemmed from a dispute over the band not getting its photo on the cover of Spin’s year-end issue.

“This attack is deplorable--the cowardly actions of a spoiled rock star,” said Marks, who was examined and treated on Tuesday by doctors at a New York hospital.

“For someone like Manson--who has banked his entire career on 1st Amendment free speech protection--to allow his goons to attack a journalist for any reason is unconscionable.”