By Jonathan Kaminsky

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - A Louisiana door-to-door steak salesman shot his boss with a stun gun after being caught selling weapons while he was supposed to be hawking meat, police said Tuesday.

Benjamin Boyce, 25, was selling a stun gun to a woman at a gas station in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner on Friday when his supervisor pulled in and observed the transaction, said Kenner Police Department spokesman Brian McGregor.

The boss, a 46-year-old whose name was not released, told police he had previously warned Boyce, his employee of about two months, against selling stun guns while on the clock, McGregor said.

After telling Boyce he was fired, a struggle ensued over the keys to a company vehicle Boyce had been using, with Boyce shooting his boss in the neck with the stun gun, McGregor said.

Boyce told police that his boss grabbed the keys out of his hands and that he shot in self-defense.

McGregor said a witness who attempted to break up the fight backed up the boss’s contention that Boyce went on the attack after his boss took the keys out of the ignition.

The alleged victim suffered swelling to his neck as well as a sore jaw from being punched, McGregor said. There was no report of any injury to Boyce, he added.

Boyce appeared in a Louisiana state court Monday, where a judge found probable cause to hold him on a charge of aggravated battery, a felony carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $5,000 fine, said an administrative assistant with the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office.

He remains in jail in lieu of $10,000 bond.

(Editing by David Adams, Diane Craft and Jim Loney)