Actor Christian Slater has been arrested in New York City and charged with fondling a woman on the street, a police spokeswoman said.

Slater, 35, was picked up by police on Manhattan's Upper East Side in the early hours of yesterday after a woman complained that the movie star had touched her buttocks.

Television news footage showed an angry Slater handcuffed and protesting his innocence as he was escorted into a squad car. "I didn't do anything," he shouted to reporters.

Police sources suggested he was intoxicated at the time.

Slater who is currently appearing on Broadway in The Glass Menagerie was charged with third degree sexual abuse and was to be arraigned in court, the spokeswoman said.

It was not the actor's first brush with the law.

In 1997, he pleaded no contest to charges of assaulting his girlfriend and attacking a police officer who tried to intervene. He served 59 days of a three-month sentence.

Slater's Hollywood career took off with his 1986 role in the medieval murder mystery, The name of the rose.

He is known for his roles in films such as 1994's Interview with the vampire: the vampire chronicles, Heathers, Very bad things and Windtalkers.