Andy Dick faces sexual battery allegation in Van Nuys court

LOS ANGELES — Allegations of inappropriate behavior, some rising to the level of a criminal offense, are piling up against comedian Andy Dick.

Dick is set to be arraigned July 18 in Van Nuys on one misdemeanor count each of sexual battery and simple battery filed by the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.

The charges filed June 7 were based on allegations that the comedian groped a stranger on April 5, making lewd comments and squeezing the woman’s buttocks as he walked past, TMZ reported.

Dick was fired from the independent film “Raising Buchanan” last year after co-workers accused him of groping, licking and sexually propositioning them, sources told The Hollywood Reporter.

The comedian denied the groping allegations to the trade paper in October, but acknowledged he may have licked people as part of his comic shtick.

“I didn’t grope anybody. I might have kissed somebody on the cheek to say goodbye and then licked them. That’s my thing,” Dick said. “I licked Carrie Fisher at a roast. It’s me being funny. I’m not trying to sexually harass people,” he said.

The comic, who was a member of the “NewsRadio” cast in the mid-1990s and once appeared on “Celebrity Rehab,” told THR at the time that he had toned down his behavior.

“I don’t grope people anymore. I don’t expose myself anymore,” Dick said. “I do understand that the temperature in the world right now is delicate.”