SPOTLIGHT IN THE
Manhattan judge sees no slander in Alec Baldwin’s TV talk
NEW YORK >> Alex Baldwin won a partial victory Thursday in a lawsuit by a man who claims the hot-headed actor slandered him in media interviews about their feud over a parking spot.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge David Cohen ruled Baldwin didn’t slander New York contractor Wojciech Cieszkowski when he discussed their confrontation on the TV talk show circuit. Cohen dismissed the slander portion of Cieszkowski’s suit. The assault and battery portion of Cieszkowski’s lawsuit still stands, and both he and Baldwin are ordered to appear in court Feb. 19 for a preliminary conference.
Cieszkowski’s lawsuit claimed that Baldwin slimed him during a Feb. 4 interview on “The Ellen Show” when he said, “Did I have an argument with the guy? Yeah. I thought he was going to run my wife over with his car when he was stealing my parking spot.”
The contractor also took issue with Baldwin’s March 27 appearance on Howard Stern’s show, when the actor said, “I think he was going to hit my wife and my son. … He just went zip! — really fast, and really aggressive. My wife and son were standing on the curb,” according to a May court filing.
Cieszkowski said the remarks painted him as a criminal guilty of reckless endangerment and reckless driving. The judge didn’t agree, though. “They constitute every day words used to describe driving by the public,” Cohen wrote in a seven-page decision Thursday. “Here, the words stated by (Baldwin) are not words that accuse (Cieszkowski) of a specific crime … . They are words of frustration with someone’s driving.”
The case is one of two dueling lawsuits between the men. Baldwin says Cieszkowski’s claim to cops that he socked him in the jaw is untrue, and led to him being wrongly arrested.
Cieszkowski’s suit labels Baldwin as an “entitled celebrity” who suffered pain and headaches from Baldwin’s punch on Nov. 2, 2018.
Baldwin was arrested and charged with assault and harassment for allegedly sucker-punching Cieszkowski for pulling his Saab station wagon into a parking spot that the actor was hoping to take.
The 61-year-old actor pleaded guilty to a lesser count of harassment in January and took a one-day anger management course.
This past November — a year after their initial confrontation — Baldwin sued Cieszkowski for defamation.
The “30 Rock” star and Trump impersonator has a long history of aggressive behavior, often aimed at the media. He was accused of attacking a former New York Daily News photographer in 2012 outside the Marriage Bureau in Lower Manhattan, but wasn’t charged in connection to the incident.
Baldwin also got a disorderly conduct summons in 2014 after arguing with police who ticketed him for riding his bike the wrong way on a one-way street.