Case Goes to Jury in Baldwin’s Suit Against Photographer

Jurors in the assault and privacy rights battle between movie star Alec Baldwin and paparazzo Alan Zanger began deliberations Friday in a case one lawyer said will ultimately boil down to credibility and motive.

“The only thing that matters to Mr. Baldwin is the principle of the thing,” his lawyer, Philip D. Weiss, told the jury in closing arguments. “The only thing that matters to Mr. Zanger is the money.”

Baldwin hit Zanger in the face nearly three years ago when the photographer attempted to videotape the actor bringing his wife, Kim Basinger, and newborn daughter, Ireland, home from the hospital for the first time. Baldwin contends that Zanger assaulted him and that he struck back in self-defense. Zanger says he did nothing to provoke the actor.

Zanger’s lawyer, Leonard Steiner, says Baldwin hit the photographer simply because the man had the audacity to film the actor and his family without his consent.

Steiner told jurors that while his client has made the same basic allegations for the last three years, Baldwin has changed his story every time he’s told it. Baldwin told Los Angeles Police Department officers that he slapped Zanger in the face, without mentioning his claim of having hit him only in self-defense, Steiner said.

In 1996, Baldwin was tried for battery, but a jury acquitted him, saying Zanger lost his credibility after admitting to exaggerating the incident in a news interview.

Baldwin, who has starred in such movies as “The Hunt for Red October” and “The Juror,” is suing for invasion of privacy.