Police in Alabama on Monday formally charged the man who allegedly attacked four-term Talladega mayor Larry Barton over the weekend.
In a release, Vestavia Hills Police said that suspect Benny Green, 71, had been charged with first-degree assault and was being held at the municipal jail on $150,000 bond.
In an interview on Sunday, Barton, who was re-elected in 2011 after serving three years in prison for fraud, told NBC News that he was attacked on Saturday morning after he arrived at a parking lot outside the barber shop in Vestavia Hills where he works part time.
He said Barton said was wearing a trench coat and a hood during the attack.
Barton said that Green, who once shared a mic with him on the talk show "In the Interest of the People," immediately jerked open the door of Barton’s Cadillac and started swinging what appeared to be a sawed-off baseball bat at his head.
"This went on for three or four or five minutes,” Barton said, adding, "I kept blowing the horn, trying to get some attention."
Barton said that he eventually kicked Green twice in the groin. Green “attempted to flee the scene on a bicycle,” the release said, “however bystanders managed to intervene and detain him until our arrival.”
Barton said that he did not know why Green would have attacked him, though The Birmingham News reported that the mayor "was caught on hidden video having sex with Green's wife," according to Green’s former divorce lawyer.
Barton denied knowing anything about a video and described it as "an attempt to try and embarrass me."