Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi wasn’t the only Jersey Shore cast member involved in a on the reality show. Her costar Ronnie Magro was arrested in September after getting into a fight with another man in front of MTV’s cameras.
According to Thomas Boyd, the police chief of Seaside Heights, N.J., where the MTV hit was filmed, Magro — who also goes by Ronnie Ortiz-Magro — was arrested Sept. 4 (under the name Ronnie Ortiz) for aggravated assault for striking a man with a closed fist. Footage of the altercation will air in a future Jersey Shore episode.
Magro, 24, tells PEOPLE that he received a letter in the mail saying that the charges have been dismissed, but adds that he did spend a few hours in jail, had a mug shot taken and paid about $600 for bail.
“I definitely felt out of place,” he says of being behind bars. “It’s definitely a place I never want to go back to again. Definitely a lesson learned.”
However, Mike Mohl, chief of detectives with the Ocean County prosecutor’s office, says the case is now with prosecutors and is under review for further action.
Still, Magro places much of the blame on the other party, who he says provoked him while he was walking home from a bar with Snooki and their costar Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola. Magro says that the other person involved in the fight was being disrespectful to his friends, shouted “racist” remarks at their African-American security guards and might have spat on him.
“I really don’t feel bad for the altercations that I did get into in Seaside because I’m really not a person who likes to fight,” Magro tells PEOPLE. “He was just being a drunk jerk, saw the camera … [and] I think he chased us down like two blocks or something like that. At that point, you’re like, ‘What am I gonna do?’”
Magro, who also gets into a separate brawl on the Jan. 7 episode, says he was acting in self-defense. “You’ll see throughout the show, we do go out and if we do get into an altercation,” he says. “It’s us just defending ourselves or reacting to somebody else.”
Does Magro have any regrets? “People [were] out of hand,” he says. “I regret getting arrested. I don’t regret having the fight.” –Lesley Messer and Diane Herbst
No comments:
Post a Comment