SCRANTON, Pa. — The man accused of attacking a group of people by spraying them with tar says it was all a misunderstanding. He claims there was a malfunc...

SCRANTON, Pa. -- The man accused of attacking a group of people by spraying them with tar says it was all a misunderstanding.

He claims there was a malfunction on a truck he uses to seal driveways.

Malfunction or not, we're learning he left a trail of tar through Scranton, damaging dozens of cars over the weekend.

A few dozen drivers on 10th Avenue woke up Sunday morning to find what appeared to be tar sprayed all over the sides of their vehicles and a line of the stuff all the way down their street.

A contractor admits that his truck is the culprit and says it was all a malfunction that's now racked up thousands of dollars in property damage.

"This whole entire block realized that there was black little spots all over their cars, and there's a line of black tar. I guess that's what it is, all over the streets here," Jasmine Davies said.

Dave Price first only noticed the specks on his doors and tires, but he soon realized the problem was much bigger.

"And then when I noticed the line, I followed it and it leads all the way into an alleyway off of Hampton Street," Price said.

The trail of tar appears to end on Hand Place. Neighbors think more than three dozen cars were hit with the stuff.

"I don't know whether the guy had a leak, but the only way it could do that is if you had your nozzle still open. To do that to somebody's car, it's unreal," said Price.

The contractor in question is accused of spraying people with tar earlier in the evening on Courthouse Square in downtown Scranton.

The group of people hit with tar took a video of the contractor before the alleged attack. We've since learned that his name is Mike D'Agostino, and he disputes the claim that he sprayed the eight people intentionally because he was mad that he was in the background of a picture they took.

He says it's all just a misunderstanding. His truck malfunctioned spraying tar all over the group and the pickup truck owned by one of them, then dozens of others as he made his way home to west Scranton -- totaling, potentially, tens of thousands of dollars in damage.

We spoke to the contractor, Mike D'Agostino, over the phone. He's the owner of D'Agostino Seal Coating. He did not want to talk to us on camera, but he did want us to know that this was not an intentional act.