Photographer charged with assaulting NYC doorman says he was victim in clash caught on camera

Photographer charged with assaulting NYC doorman

NEW YORK — A news photographer was charged Friday with assault but said he was the victim in a clash with a doorman at the apartment building of legally troubled celebrity financial adviser Kenneth Starr.

Photographer Timothy Wiencis was released without bail after his arraignment in the scuffle, which another lensman captured on camera.

The confrontation unfolded Thursday outside Starr’s posh home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he has a $7.6 million, five-bedroom apartment with a 32-foot granite lap pool and a 1,500-square-foot garden, according to federal court papers. He was charged Thursday with stealing $30 million from clients; he told a judge he was “an extremely law-abiding person.”

Wiencis, 44, was outside the building while working on assignment for the New York Post on the Starr story, said his lawyer, Robert Gottlieb.

A court complaint says the photographer hit the doorman in the head with his camera, leaving cuts and swelling.

Gottlieb said the doorman started yelling at the various photographers gathered outside the East 74th Street building and then summarily attacked Wiencis while he was standing legally in the street. Images from another photographer that were published in Friday’s Daily News appear to show Wiencis getting punched in the face and ending up on the ground while in the street.

“He is entitled to be there, and he was entitled to be taking pictures,” Gottlieb said. “Tim winds up being arrested and incarcerated overnight for doing his job and being viciously assaulted.”

Wiencis was arrested after being treated at a hospital. He suffered a concussion and serious injuries to a thumb, Gottlieb said.

A Post spokeswoman had no immediate comment Friday. A woman who answered the phone at a possible number for the doorman hung up. A message left for the building’s developer wasn’t immediately returned.