Randy Travis said he didn't do it — the country star on Friday pleaded not guilty to a simple assault charge stemming from an August dust-up in a church parking lot.

Travis, appearing in a Plano, Texas, courtroom, requested a jury trial in the matter. He was cited in late August after he allegedly got involved in an argument between his girlfriend and her estranged husband. A court date's been set for March 11.

Travis' attorney, Larry Friedman, tells the story a little differently than it appeared in media reports at the time. The singer, Friedman told the Dallas Morning News, intervened as a 'good Samaritan' when two men were harassing the woman and her 17-year-old daughter. By the time police arrived, he said, one of the men had attacked Travis, who was defending himself..