CHICAGO: British comedian Russell Brand could face a felony charge for snatching a paparazzo's iPhone and throwing it at the window of a nearby office, the celebrity news website TMZ reported Friday.

Brand is free on bond after turning himself into New Orleans police over the incident, which was initially thought to be a possible misdemeanor for criminal damage.

“He's been booked. He posted bond and he was released within an hour of his arrest,” New Orleans police spokesman Frank Robertson told AFP, after Brand was released on a $5,000 bond Thursday.

TMZ said that, because the iPhone was worth more than $500, the alleged incident amounts to a possible felony, which carries a maximum sentence of two years in jail, if prosecutors decide to go ahead with the charge.

The celebrity website posted photos of Brand snatching the phone out of the hands of photographer Timothy Jackson, who was sitting in a car at the time.

Brand later offered to pay for the shattered window, the celebrity tracking website reported.

The notorious bad boy made light of the incident in a Twitter post Wednesday.

“Since Steve Jobs died I cannot bear to see anyone use an iphone irreverently, what I did was a tribute to his memory,” Brand tweeted.

Brand, a recovering drug and alcohol addict with a reputation as a womanizer, found fame as a comedian and later as a TV and radio presenter in Britain before starring in hit Hollywood films “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek.”

He was arrested in 2010 after he allegedly attacked a photographer at Los Angeles International Airport.

Brand filed for divorce in December to end his marriage to US pop star Katy Perry 14 months after the pair were wed in India.