Brown emerged from a Washington court on Monday flashing a peace sign after spending more than a day in custody on a charge filed after a man accused the Grammy winner and his bodyguard of punching him and breaking his nose outside a local hotel.

The Grammy winner's arrest early Sunday comes at a crucial time for the singer, who is releasing an album this winter and is under a deadline to complete hundreds of hours of community service to satisfy his sentence for beating  his on-again, off-again girlfriend Rihanna in 2009.

His day and a half in custody are the longest time the scandal-plagued singer has spent behind bars and the case represents the most serious accusations he's faced since his attack on Rihanna. Brown left the courthouse to cheers from supporters, some of whom clapped when a judge announced he would be released.

Chris B was arrested for punching a man who tried to get a picture with the singer and two other people near Washington's W Hotel early Sunday, according to the man's account in a police report. The report states that the victim, Parker Isaac Adams, 20, said Brown told him, "I'm not down with that gay shit" and "I feel like boxing." The exact context of Brown's remarks was not immediately clear.

The man told police Brown punched him in the face, and a court filing states the man's nose was fractured. Brown's bodyguard, Chris Hollosy, stepped between them and also punched the man before grabbing Brown by the arm and leading him toward his tour bus, according to the report.

In an interview with police, Brown denied hitting the man and said he was on his tour bus when Hollosy got into a fight with Adams.

"We understand that his security acted to protect Mr Brown and Mr Brown's property as he was authorized to do under District of Columbia law. We are confident that Mr Brown will be exonerated of any wrongdoing," Brown's lawyer, Danny Onorato, said after Monday's hearing.

Brown faces an August 2014 deadline to complete 1,000 hours of graffiti cleanup or other community labor. The additional service was added earlier this year after prosecutors accused Brown of failing to properly complete his service in his home state of Virginia.

In addition to penalties fine china crooner would face if convicted in the Washington case, he also faces the possibility of up to four years in prison if a Los Angeles judge determines he violated his probation for the Rihanna attack.

Probation officials would need to investigate the new arrest for it to become an issue in California, which could happen before Brown's next probation progress hearing on 20 November.

Chris Brown's fate now depends on the facts in the Washington case, the singer's history might lead to some more time behind bars. "If the guy got hurt at all, I think he's looking at some jail time," he said.