ABC(NEW YORK) — When two New Yorkers get into an argument over a parking space, they typically exchange a few sharp words and maybe a rude gesture, and then move on with their lives.
A November 2018 encounter between actor Alec Baldwin and a contractor from Rockland County now involves a lawsuit and counter-suit.
Baldwin is suing Wojciech Cieszkowski, who claimed Baldwin punched him during a fight over a New York City parking space.
Baldwin alleges Cieszkowski defamed him when he told police the actor violently assaulted him last November.
“Cieszkowski’s story — that Baldwin ‘violently assaulted’ him and punched him in the face during an argument over a parking spot — was false,” Baldwin’s lawsuit says. “Hospital records and video surveillance footage prove that it was a lie.”
Baldwin characterized the encounter with Cieszkowski as “minor” and says he, at most, “lightly pushed” him.
“As if defaming Baldwin and having him falsely and involuntarily arrested weren’t enough, Cieszkowski has also sued Baldwin and publicly repeated his false story yet again, claiming that he is the victim of a ‘violent’ assault,” Baldwin’s lawsuit says. “Cieszkowski wants a fortune to remedy his supposed injuries from that ‘assault.’ Yet the doctors who saw him immediately after the incident thought he needed, at most, one dose of Tylenol.”
Footage of the scrap, including Baldwin shoving the other man backward onto the hood of a car, made front-page news in New York City last year, and got Baldwin arrested, to boot. Last January, he pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment in exchange for being sentenced to attend a short-term anger management program and paying a $120 surcharge
Copyright © 2019, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.