Man Who Sucker-Punched Rick Moranis Last Month Was Finally Arrested

The man is being charged with second degree assault

A man was finally arrested over the weekend in New York City after attacking beloved actor Rick Moranis this October. The man walked by the Honey I Shrunk The Kids actor and sucker-punched Moranis to the ground.

Suspect Marquis Ventura was spotted by transit officers on Saturday in the subway system near 72nd Street and Broadway, just a few blocks from where the Oct. 1 assault took place around 7:30 a.m., just outside of Central Park. NYPD News announced the arrest, saying in part, “Thanks to an eagle-eyed sergeant from @NYPDTransit, this suspect has been apprehended and charged.”

The attack was caught on surveillance camera and showed a man in a “I Love NY” sweatshirt punch 67-year-old Moranis who later took himself to a hospital with back, neck, and hip pain.

Moranis had a booming career as an actor, appearing in tons of hits like Parenthood, Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, Strange Brew, and Little Shop of Horrors. At the height of his career, he took a lengthy break (over 20 years) after his wife, costume designer Ann Belsky, died from breast cancer in 1991. She was just 35 years old.

The couple were only married for five years before she died and they share two children, Rachel and Mitchell. Moranis tried to keep working at the time, but as a full-time single father, it became quickly impossible so he made the decision to leave the industry to focus his time on his young kids.

“I pulled out of making movies in about ’96 or ’97,” Moranis told USA Today in 2005. “I’m a single parent, and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn’t miss it.”

He is so beloved by fans of his humor and many of his films became cult classics watched by generations. People are understandably glad that his attacker was caught and will be brought to justice:

Police didn’t identify Moranis at the time of the attack, but Moranis’s representative, Troy Bailey, confirmed the actor had been attacked. Police characterized it as a “random, unprovoked assault” at the time.

Ventura was charged with second-degree assault and was identified by the NYPD as homeless. He has over a dozen arrests, including one for another random attack two weeks after he attacked Moranis on the subway, the New York Post reported. He will be arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court today.

Thank goodness the attack didn’t lead to anything worse for Moranis and that the person responsible is finally facing charges.