Now a firefighter, The Sandlot's Michael Vitar charged with assaulting man passing out candy

(Image credit: Twitter.com/Variety)

published 9 December 2015

Two Los Angeles firefighters — including a former child actor famous for playing Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez in The Sandlot — and a third man have found themselves in a big pickle.

The Los Angeles District Attorney's office said Tuesday that firefighters Michael Vitar, 36, and Eric Carpenter, 38, along with Thomas Molnar, 45, are facing charges they beat up a 22-year-old man on Halloween night. The felony complaint states that all three were at a party at Carpenter's house in northwest Los Angeles; Vitar — who in addition to starring in the 1993 classic also appeared in The Mighty Ducks and several commercials — and Carpenter were both off duty. They allegedly went after a man who was passing out candy to children in the street, and all three were arrested on assault charges; Carpenter is charged with inflicting great bodily injury.

Attorneys for Vitar and Molnar told NBC4 in Los Angeles that the charges should never have been filed, because the men were protecting neighborhood children. The 22-year-old was wearing a mask and costume and acting strange, the attorneys said, so Vitar, Carpenter, and Molnar confronted him. He couldn't explain why he was there, so the trio escorted him from the area, but he kept coming back. They eventually restrained him and notified the authorities, but at one point he lost consciousness, the attorneys said; Carpenter resuscitated him, and the man was taken away in an ambulance. In a statement, the Los Angeles Fire Department said the firefighters are on administrative leave with pay, pending the outcome of the case. Vitar, Molnar, and Carpenter are all out on bail, and scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 21.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.