LOS ANGELES – Actor Ryan O’Neal was arrested and accused of assaulting his adult son with a handgun during a fight at the actor’s Malibu home, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said on Sunday.
Deputies went to Ryan O’Neal’s home at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday and determined that he had assaulted his son, Griffin O’Neal, during a family dispute, the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
Ryan O’Neal, 65, was accused of assault with a deadly weapon and negligent discharge of a firearm. He was released on a $50,000 bond after five hours in custody.
Sgt. Peter Charbonneau at the Malibu Lost Hills station said the weapon was a handgun but he did not know how many shots had been fired.
Griffin O’Neal, 42, was not injured but a 22-year-old female friend of his suffered minor injuries, not from the gun, and was treated at a hospital.
Representatives for Ryan O’Neal could not be reached for comment.
Griffin O’Neal is the son of O’Neal and his first wife, Joanna Moore, and is the brother of actress Tatum O’Neal.
He worked as an actor in the 1980s and ’90s but never attained the star status of his father, who wooed the world with his boyish good looks as Oliver Barrett IV in “Love Story” in 1970.
Ryan O’Neal won an Oscar nomination for best actor for that role and went on to star in movies like “Paper Moon” and “Barry Lyndon.” Lately, he worked in television.
He was diagnosed with a chronic but treatable form of leukemia and had been in the news in the last year to talk about his support for his former long-time companion Farrah Fawcett in her battle with cancer. She was declared cancer-free last week.
Father and son were rumored to have a tempestuous relationship and Griffin O’Neal has had past problems with substance abuse and the law.
According to celebrity Web site TMZ.com, he served 18 days in jail for failing to do community service after a judge found him guilty of reckless boating in the 1986 accident that killed the eldest son of film director Francis Ford Coppola.
He pleaded no contest to a 1989 drunken driving charge and in 1992 agreed to spend one year in drug rehabilitation after pleading no contest to charges he shot at his estranged girlfriend’s unoccupied car, TMZ.com said.
The TMZ story: TMZ has obtained the mugshot of actor Ryan O’Neal, who was arrested Saturday morning at his Malibu home. He was booked on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and negligent discharge of a firearm after a fight with his son, Griffin. O’Neal was released after posting $50,000 bail.
Police tell TMZ that O’Neal, 65, fired at least one gunshot during the scuffle.
Cops say he was booked at the Lost Hills Sheriff’s station without incident. He was released at 5:30 AM.
Sheriff’s sources tell TMZ that a 22-year-old female friend of Griffin’s was “inadvertently” injured at the scene and transported to a local hospital. Sources wouldn’t confirm if the injury was a result of the gunshot.