The Sopranos "Salvatore 'Big Pussy' Bonpensiero" Testifies at Trial

Actor Vincent Pastore, who played a gregarious gangster on "The Sopranos," said Friday he wept when he realized the former fiancee he is accused of assaulting did not love him.

Pastore, fighting actress Lisa Regina's $5.5 million civil assault lawsuit, testified that their dispute began when she tried to call a former boyfriend while they were driving to New Jersey on April 2, 2005.

They yelled and cursed each other, and Pastore admitted he yanked her out of his car and dumped her and her luggage on a street in Manhattan's Little Italy. She says he hit her, causing cuts and bruises.

Pastore pleaded guilty in 2005 to attempted assault on Regina and was sentenced to 70 hours of community service.

On Friday, he said he never hit her.

Regina, 47, says she suffered psychiatric harm from the incident, but Pastore's lawyer, Barry R. Strutt, told the jury he will offer treatment records to show she had emotional problems before the dispute.

Pastore said that as they argued, he returned to a corner near Regina's apartment and ordered her out of his car, but she refused to go.

"I was upset," the actor said, "because I knew Lisa was with me because of her own personal goals. It had nothing to do with love."

"I said to her, 'That's as far as you go. You're out of my life,"' the 62-year-old Pastore testified. "I got angry. I started to cry. Lisa said, 'Stop it! People know who you are. You're embarrassing yourself."'

"We were both angry, both yelling at each other," he said. "I had both hands on the steering wheel. I did not hit her on the back of the head, and I did not hit her head on the gear shift," as she has said.

Pastore said that when he got out to open the passenger-side door, Regina started yelling, "Big Pussy's beating me up! 'Sopranos!"' He testified that he was actually standing against a wall, and she was in the car. "Nobody was touching anybody," he said.

Called as a hostile witness by Regina's lawyer, Pastore agreed that his weeping was the culmination of many things.

"You felt used?" asked the attorney, David Perecman.

"Yes," the actor answered.

"You felt taken advantage of?"

"Yes."

"You felt unloved?"

"Yes."

Regina filed her lawsuit against Pastore in Manhattan's state Supreme Court on Jan. 5, 2006. The trial continues Monday.

Pastore played Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero, a mob killer with a congenial personality, on the hit HBO series.

Thanks to Samuel Maull