Alec Baldwin sues driver who claims actor punched him in the face over parking spot altercation

Actor’s lawyer says accusation led to him being ‘falsely imprisoned’ and ‘held against his will’

Alec Baldwin is suing a man who claimed the actor punched him in the face during an altercation over a parking spot.

The Saturday Night Live star was arrested and charged with assault last year after the incident, which took place outside his home in Manhattan's West Village. He pleaded guilty to the charge and agreed to take an anger management class.

However, US media reports that he is now suing his accuser, Wojciech Cieszkowski, for defamation, claiming that he made up a “false story about the encounter”.

In the lawsuit, Baldwin's lawyer says Cieszkowski lied to police about the attack, and that Baldwin only “lightly pushed” him during the argument. It also says Baldwin was angered because he thought Cieszkowski had driven dangerously close to his wife and child, who were on the curb.

Court documents claim that “hospital records and video surveillance footage prove that it was a lie”.

Baldwin's complaint adds that Cieszkowski's accusations resulted in the actor being “falsely imprisoned, held against his will, and charged with a crime he did not commit”.

“When two New Yorkers get into an argument over a parking space, typically what happens is they exchange a few sharp words and then move on with their lives,” the lawsuit states.

“That is not what happened here. Cieszkowski has instead made up a false story about the encounter and refused to move on unless Baldwin succumbs to his extortion demands.”

Cieszkowsi's own lawyer, Doug Lieb, has dismissed the lawsuit as a “bullying tactic”.

“Like the man he plays on television, Alec Baldwin is an entitled celebrity with a long history of verbally and physically mistreating others he sees as beneath him,” he said.

Baldwin was arrested in 2014 for allegedly arguing with police who stopped him for cycling the wrong way up a street. Three years before that, he was kicked off a flight in the US over a dispute that saw him refuse to stop playing a game on his phone.

Additional reporting by Associated Press