Actor Alec Baldwin pleaded guilty to a charge of harassment on Wednesday following a November dust-up over a parking spot, and later talked about it on Twitter.
The 30 Rock star, 60, appeared in a New York City courtroom where he agreed to complete a one-day anger management class to resolve the violation, the lowest level of offence, and pay a $170 fine.
If he completes the class, the case record will be sealed.
Baldwin was arrested in New York City on November 2 and charged with assault and harassment after allegedly punching a man over a parking dispute in front of his Manhattan apartment building, police said at the time. However, Baldwin said he did not punch the man during the argument.
“It didn’t happen,” he tweeted Wednesday.
On Twitter, the Emmy-winning Saturday Night Live star, who portrays President Donald Trump, blasted the media spotlight on the incident and sought to clarify a few points, particularly those initial reports that accused him of throwing a punch.
“At the Criminal Court [building] on Centre Street, I pled guilty to a charge of harassment, a violation. In that [building] today there are 3 murder trials scheduled, one involving a white supremacist who killed someone in Times Square,” the star tweeted. “All the press was outside the courtroom I was in.”
“[T]the press reported that I punched someone. That is untrue, and that is a serious charge. A man was punched in NY recently and died,” he wrote, adding “[N]othing that resembles justice ever enters or leaves any courtroom in this country.”
Baldwin has had run-ins with the law before. In 2014, he was arrested in New York and issued a summons for disorderly conduct after riding his bike in the wrong direction.
Police at the time said Baldwin “became belligerent and argumentative with the officers”.
In 2005, he tussled with photographer Alan Zanger who was attempting to take shots of his then-wife, Kim Basinger, and their three-day-old daughter, Ireland Baldwin, outside their Californian home.
In 2007, a voicemail he left for daughter Ireland came to light, in which he called her a “rude, thoughtless little pig”. He later said in an interview that it “hurt [Ireland] in a permanent way”.
In 2011, he was kicked off an American Airlines flight after he refused to turn off his phone.
A year later, he was involved in a number of altercations with photographers when pictures of him with his then fiance and now wife, Hilaria Baldwin, were in high-demand.
