Matthew Fashion Arrested During Taxi Dispute

        Fresno native and cable television performer Matthew Fashion was arrested by Fresno police early on August 18th after he got into an argument with a taxi cab driver over a fare.

        Fashion was also a celebrity grand marshal for the 2006 Pride Parade and Festival.

        According to Fresno police lieutenant Dennis Montejano, officers were sent to the DejaVu nightclub on North Blackstone around 1:30 a.m. after the cabbie called the department claiming Fashion (whose real name is Matthew Kalashian) had refused to pay the fare.

According to
Fresno police officer Timesa Spencer, the cab driver said he had picked Fashion up “somewhere off of

Herndon Avenue

” (from Fashion’s parents’ house) and drove Fashion to DejaVu where Fashion told him “he didn’t have any money.” According to the cab driver, one of Fashion’s friends asked him how much the fare was and offered to get the $53.00 from an ATM, but did not return.

 

In a written statement Fashion said he paid the fare.

“I called a taxi cab after my friends had left and asked him to take me to the club,” Fashion said. “When I arrived at the night club I did promptly pay the cab driver his fare and remember him saying to me ‘Are you that gay boy from television?’ I said yes, and then thank you.

“I continued in to the club and proceeded with my evening,” Fashion continued. “After maybe 15 minutes of me arriving I was asked by security of this establishment to go outside, that the taxi driver had claimed that I had not paid him his money. That’s crap! Of course though I went outside and had a friendly confrontation with the driver until he said to me ‘Who do you think you are… Kevin Federline?’ (also from Fresno
). That set me off and I became livid with the situation. Next thing you know the cops were called to the scene and handcuffs were on me in a matter of moments.”

Fresno
police say the cab driver declined to make a citizen’s arrest for the alleged unpaid fare.

Officer Spencer described Fashion in her report as “extremely intoxicated” and decided to arrest him for public intoxication. According to the officer, Fashion supplied her with a relative’s phone number and said she would come get him. Spencer said she planned to cite Fashion and release him to his relative until she discovered he had a misdemeanor warrant (for driving on a suspended drivers’ license) out of Los Angeles County .

Fashion admitted in his statement he “did drink far too much” that evening. According to the statement, Fashion had been drinking at a barbeque and a private birthday party with friends from high school days before going to DejaVu.

Officer Spencer drove Fashion to the county jail where he was left in the custody of a police cadet to be booked. According to the officer, shortly after she left Fashion “became very emotional and began yelling and would not sit down. They gave him repeated commands but he still would not listen. They handcuffed him and placed him inside a room for” a brief time. The cadet saw Fashion “pulling the cords apart that were attached to the phone” in the waiting room. Fashion was then arrested and booked for misdemeanor vandalism.

Fashion, in his statement, while admitting that “much of the media that is being written about this is sadly true,” says that some of the “the little ‘blog’ columns from the community of Fresno that surfaced immediately following this incident have some very false accusations…which enrages me to think how bitter, cruel and invasive these people were.”

Queer Fresno.com referred to Fashion as a “little punk” and posted video and photos of the incident on line. Fashion said he “really had never been so embarrassed and so distraught at the onlookers taking pictures and video.” He said he asked the officers to be put in a patrol car for some privacy—which they did.

Fashion said in his statement that he has “especially learned though how small some people can be. I will rise above all the foolish people that think that by falsely accusing me of not paying, or that by snapping a few photos that will may be help them out of their little town of Fresno
or their own sad states of being. I did not break any laws leading up to my arrest. I paid my fare…and more importantly would not have ever driven in that state of non-sobriety. So my message to the haters: well… screw you!”

Fashion is due to appear in a
Fresno courtroom on November 7th at 8:30 a.m.

Leave a Comment