Ald. Ricardo Munoz was arrested without incident at his 22nd Ward office Wednesday morning after physically assaulting his wife on New Year’s Eve, Chicago police said.

Munoz’s wife, Betty Torres-Munoz, filed Wednesday for an order of protection in Cook County Domestic Violence Court. She asked a judge to order Munoz to stay away from their residence and mixed breed dog, Rambo, and to pay her $1,000 a month in temporary support beginning next month.

In those court papers, she alleged that during a heated argument Monday night her husband “forcibly” grabbed and pushed her, causing her to fall and hit her back and head as well as twist her left arm.

“Ricardo had been drinking all day + was drunk,” she wrote.

Torres-Munoz also said that she feared “for my well being.”

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Munoz was charged with misdemeanor domestic battery.

Guglielmi said Munoz fled the residence after his wife called police immediately following the physical attack. She suffered injuries but declined to seek medical attention, Guglielmi said.

The veteran alderman was taken into custody Wednesday morning at his ward office in the Little Village neighborhood, Guglielmi said.

No one answered the phone there early Wednesday afternoon, and Munoz did not return messages left on his cellphone.

Munoz, who was appointed to his seat by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1993, is the city’s longest-tenured Hispanic alderman. He announced in July that he would not seek re-election. At the time, he said he was retiring because he was “having fun writing the next chapter of my life.”

Daley appointed Munoz to succeed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia after Garcia left for the Illinois Senate. Last year, Munoz considered running to succeed Garcia on the Cook County Board when the commissioner announced he would run for U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s congressional seat, but Munoz opted not to run.

Munoz, a native of Monterrey, Mexico, has faced other controversies over the years. He acknowledged that he intervened to help a relative get into a prestigious city high school in 2009. And in 2008, his estranged father was sentenced to four years in prison for taking part in a fake ID ring.

The outgoing alderman also previously disclosed that as a teenager he had been affiliated with a Little Village gang and had been arrested on charges of unlawful use of weapons and controlled substances. Daley hailed Munoz, who rose from the streets to become Garcia’s chief of staff, as a positive role model for youths.

In 2010, six months before the City Council election, Munoz said he was an alcoholic, admitting he drank excessively after work but not in the mornings and afternoons. He was re-elected twice after that.

As part of a 2013 story on Cook County judges sealing divorce records for an array of powerful and connected people, the Tribune reported that a judge had impounded a divorce filed by Munoz’s wife in 2009.

At the time of the story, Munoz told the Tribune he had sought to seal the divorce records because “it dealt with some very embarrassing drinking issues.”

Munoz said then that he had reconciled with his wife.

“I’m a public figure and the court has rules, and I played by those rules,” Munoz said of the sealed divorce records. “I didn’t ask for any special treatment. … I chose to keep it private.”

Chicago Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner contributed.

rsobol@chicagotribune.com