Stephen Baldwin resolves NYC driving case; attorney says it stemmed from misunderstanding

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Stephen Baldwin untangled a traffic case Monday that got him arrested as he was trying to get coffee in the city this summer.

“The Usual Suspects” actor became a defendant in real life when police pulled him over in Harlem in August and said his license was suspended. He pleaded guilty Monday to unlicensed driving — a traffic infraction, not a crime — and was ordered to pay a $75 fine.

“He’s cleared up his license. It’s all a misunderstanding,” his lawyer, Richard Southard, said outside court. Baldwin, dressed in a grey suit and toting a roll-aboard suitcase, declined to comment.

The 46-year-old actor told the Daily News of New York in August that police stopped him while he was heading for a Starbucks with his daughter. He said he hadn’t been notified that his license was suspended.

State Department of Motor Vehicles representatives didn’t immediately return a call Monday.

The youngest of acting’s Baldwin brothers, Stephen Baldwin was one of the stars of the 1995 whodunit “The Usual Suspects.” He also appeared in 1989’s “Born on the Fourth of July” and television’s “The Young Riders,” and he played Barney Rubble in 2000’s “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.”

Earlier this year, Baldwin faced off in a New Orleans civil courtroom with fellow actor Kevin Costner. Baldwin said Costner and a business partner duped him out of their fair share of a lucrative deal related to the cleanup of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The actors and others had formed a company that marketed devices that separate oil from water.

Baldwin and a friend sought $17 million in damages. A federal jury sided with Costner and gave them nothing.

Outside acting, Baldwin co-hosts a radio show with conservative talk figure Kevin McCullough. Baldwin lives in suburban Rockland County.

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