Tokio Hotel's band member pays to drop stalker-assault charge

Feb 25, 2010, 13:52 GMT

Hamburg - One of the Tokio Hotel twins, Tom Kaulitz, has paid 1,000 euros for assault charges to be dropped after a clash with a woman who is alleged to have stalked the German teenie rock band.

A court spokesman in Hamburg confirmed the charge had been dropped. The mass-circulation newspaper Bild said the guitarist, 20, gave 1,000 euros to charity as part of the settlement.

Guitarist Kaulitz reportedly hurled a lighted cigarette at the French woman, who was 21 at the time she approached him at a Hamburg petrol station while he was filling his car in April 2009.

German prosecutors indicted Kaulitz for assault and damaging another's property after the woman testified Kaulitz hit her.

The band, with Tom's brother Bill as its androgynous front-man, has garnered music awards and female adulation all over Europe.

The foursome have frequently complained that they are being stalked by obsessive fans and cannot appear in public without bodyguards.