Mimes are the new clowns.
A man in a mime costume is facing harassment charges after three female Cochituate State Park employees filed reports against him in Massachusetts. He also allegedly refused to leave the park despite officials asking him to do so on multiple occasions.
Three female employees allege that a Framingham man had engaged in criminal harassment throughout the previous two months. On Sunday night, at the Cochituate Rail Trail, Massachusetts State Police arrested the 29-year-old suspect.
“I’ve seen this person walk by,” Dalia Stuart told NBC 10 Boston. “In fact, I’ve seen this person walk on the main street, and I’ve always asked myself, like, ‘Why is he dressed like that?'”
“He passed me when I was going down the path,” Chris Neofotistos said about the mime. “Kind of freaked me out a bit. Top hat, Dracula paint on his face, black cape, cane. Real creepy.”
“He was just kind of by the bushes, by the water, so that was a little weird that he was just kind of off the path, kind of stumbling around the bushes by himself,” said Tracy Qiu. “And that was when it was starting to get a little darker, so I got a little spooked.”
The mime’s court appearance turned into a spectacle
Andrew Mange, the Framingham District Court Supervisor, said, “The women report an extensive number of contacts with the defendant involving him staring at them, smiling in what they describe as ‘a really unnerving and frankly terrifying manner.'”
Mange added that the women complained that the mime “stripped down to his underwear, slathered cooking oil all over his body and began working out right by their staff area.”
As Mange read through the facts of the case against the suspect in Framingham District Court on Monday, the suspect fainted and was treated on site.
The judge ordered the suspect, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, to undergo a mental health evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital when court reconvened later in the afternoon, according to Boston 25 News.