Foxy Brown

NEW YORK (AP):

Foxy Brown turned up in a Brooklyn church to tell her side of the story of how a visit to a Florida beauty supply store went awry and ended in her arrest.

The 27-year-old rapper said she was dragged half-naked out of the store's restroom and then picked on by police officers because she is black.

"I was exposed from the waist down on the toilet," she said on Monday at Brown Memorial Baptist Church in the Clinton Hill neighbourhood. "The only crime I'm guilty of is being a young black woman."

Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, could face jail time if a judge decides she violated probation after she got in trouble for hitting two manicurists with a cell phone in 2004. She has to go back in front of the Manhattan judge this week.

Police in Florida have said that Brown spat on the store's owner and then got into a scuffle with an officer in the parking lot. The incident occurred February 15, when Brown and a friend stopped at the shop in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

Brown said she was only going to the bathroom, but the store owner refused to let her finish and then dragged her out, still undressed.

Store owner Hayssam Ghoneim said he asked Brown to leave the restroom because he was closing up shop. But he said she spat on him, and that a surveillance video shows that the rapper left the restroom door open the entire time.

Brown was charged with resisting an officer and simple battery, police said.

The rapper is known for her sexy outfits and racy lyrics. Her albums include Ill Na Na and Chyna Doll.