NEW YORK — The Coxsackie Police Department has arrested Rusty Gillespie, 45, of Brown Valley, Virginia, on charges of wanton endangerment and criminal mischief based upon complaints that Gillespie has been rimming and soliciting rimming in and around New York City, a violation of NYC Health Department guidelines established during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Gillespie, described as a “serial rimmer” in the official filings, also faces an evading charge for leaving New York City and fleeing to Coxsackie, two and a half hours north of the city, while he had an active warrant.
The arrest warrant stemmed from an investigation which determined that Gillespie solicited or attempted to solicit at least three dozen women in Tribeca over a three day period this past week with the stated intent to rim. Local enforcement officers said that it was “well known” that Gillespie was “seeking rimming opportunities in the area.”
“He’d put the word out on the street that he’d come to New York just to eat some big city assholes (sic). He wasn’t keeping it a secret,” a public relations officer for New York City Police told The Brown Valley Observer.
Coxsackie Police located and identified Gillespie based upon the description from a New York crime posting after Gillespie reportedly attempted to solicit rimming locally.
New York City issued guidelines about safe sexual practices in the COVID era in early June. Among them was a recommendation to not practice “rimming”, or the act of orally stimulating a sex partner’s anus.
Gillespie’s arrest marks the first related to these particular recommendations and will provide a stimulating example to determine the District Attorney’s ability to prosecute such a violation of a public health recommendation during a pandemic.
“I’ve told myself since New York issued rimming guidelines that they were kind of tongue in cheek and that we’d never really be in the business of enforcement. We figured this was one of those things that the people could self-govern once they’d been made aware of the guidelines,” one investigator told the Observer. “But Mr. Gillespie clearly provided us with an extreme example. This is a flagrant violation of the Health Department’s recommendations. We have to let people know that this isn’t us, this can’t be us. We hope Mr. Gillespie’s arrest will remind local citizens that we will not allow such an egregious rimming spree in these uncertain times, and that this arrest will help us clean the deck of future cases.”
Asked for comment as he was being led into the Greene County (NY) Jail Wednesday afternoon, Gillespie called to reporters, “I thought this was America, where a man was able to let his tongue get him in as deep of shit as he wanted. What’s happening to our country?”
Gillespie remains in the Greene County facility, awaiting extradition back to New York City later this week.
Brown Valley Observer 