Family Ties' Youngest Busted for Assault

Fri., Mar. 30, 2007 5:28 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Alex P. Keaton should have focused less on Reaganomics and more on common sense when teaching his little brother about the ways of the world.

Brian Bonsall, the former child star best known for playing Andy, the youngest member of the Keaton clan on the '80s-era sitcom Family Ties, was arrested Wednesday in Colorado on suspicion of domestic violence after allegedly roughing up his live-in girlfriend.

According to Boulder police, Lindsay Dunavan, 26, reported that Bonsall, 25, poured an alcoholic beverage on her while she was sleeping and, when she tried to leave their apartment, he put her in a chokehold and threw her down on the bed multiple times.

Dunavan called the cops at 6:35 a.m. but, when officers arrived at the scene, Bonsall told them that he had pushed Dunavan in self-defense because she came at him with a steak knife and cut his arm and face, according to the arrest report.

Police spokeswoman Detective Colleen Wilcox told Boulder's Daily Camera newspaper Thursday that both Bonsall and Dunavan were arrested at first, but that Dunavan was "un-arrested" about an hour later and that authorities are now looking at Bonsall as the "prominent aggressor" in the case.

The actor-turned-punk rocker is looking at two possible counts of felony second-degree assault and misdemeanor false imprisonment and is expected to be formally charged on Tuesday. He is currently being held in Boulder County Jail in lieu of $5,000 bail.

Bonsall's name also turned up in four other Boulder police reports involving allegations of domestic violence and assault, the Daily Camera reported, but further details weren't available. He was not arrested in any of those instances.

An arrest was made, however, in 2004 when Bonsall was nabbed for drunk driving after police spotted a passenger vomiting out the window of Bonsall's SUV. When officers asked the Blank Check star if he had had anything to drink, the smooth operator replied, "Plenty."

Bonsall, whose last TV role came in the 1994 movie Lily in Winter and who most recently played with the Boulder punk band Thrasher, also has two other notches on his arrest belt for failing to appear in court to appear on charges of underage drinking in Broomfield and Boulder counties.

Unfortunately, the young man couldn't blame his busy schedule.