ST. LOUIS • A St. Louis police officer who was pulled off the street after being captured on video beating a man with a baton on New Year's Day is accused of beating another man in an incident in 2006.

Michael A. Reitz, 43, of St. Charles County, filed a lawsuit last week in St. Louis Circuit Court against the officer, Dustin Ries, the St. Louis City Police Board, and Leatherwood Brothers Inc., doing business as the Big Bang, the Laclede's Landing piano bar where the incident allegedly occurred.

Reitz's attorney, Joseph Dulle, said he had already been working with his client on the case when the New Year's incident hit the news. "He called me up and said, 'you're not going to believe this,'" Dulle said.

Dulle said Reitz was visiting the bar in August 2006 with his wife and other relatives. As they were leaving, his wife turned to go back inside to use the restroom. Reitz turned to follow her back inside. Ries was working as a security officer, in his St. Louis police uniform. The suit says Ries attacked Reitz by slamming him against the building and sidewalk and jumping on his back to handcuff him.

Reitz wasn't released from jail until the next morning, the suit says.

Reitz was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest but the charges were dropped in 2009, but not without significant embarrassment, emotional distress, and spending of attorneys' fees, the suit says.

Reis remains on administrative duty, a police spokeswoman said Wednesday. She said the department does not comment on pending lawsuits.

A video recorded early Jan. 1 and posted on the Internet shows Reis pulling a man away from a car, striking him with his baton and spraying him with pepper spray at a gas station at 1815 Arsenal Street.

A 2008 federal suit alleged that Ries assaulted two men with his police baton and pepper spray while he was working off-duty in April 2006, also at the Big Bang. The men were initially charged with assault but the charges were later dropped. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

A 2005 civil suit in St. Louis alleged that Ries struck a man on the head with his baton and sprayed him with pepper spray in an on-duty traffic stop on North Grand Boulevard in September 2004. Records show the case was dismissed, and it was unclear whether it was settled out of court..