Prosecutor is charged for alleged in-the-buff hotel-room spectacle after blogger asks questions
A Maryland prosecutor who was keynote speaker at a conference in Ocean City has been charged with indecent exposure after tourists reported he could be seen naked either on his balcony or behind the sliding glass door.
Cecil County State’s Attorney Edward “Ellis” Rollins III was charged on Monday after blogger Joe Albero of the Salisbury News received a tip that Rollins had been arrested last week and released without charges, the Washington Post reports. Rollins was in Ocean City to speak at the conference of the Maryland State’s Attorneys’ Association.
The tourists told Albero the naked man they saw was participating in a sex act. Albero posted a blurred photo of the naked man at his blog. “If I hadn’t published the story,” Albero told the Washington Post, “nobody would’ve known it happened. That’s how the Eastern Shore works.”
A spokesperson for the Ocean City police said officers were dispatched last Wednesday in response to “a report of a nude male on a balcony” and took Rollins into custody for disorderly conduct and indecent exposure. Officers were advised by the Worcester County state’s attorney to release Rollins without charges pending further investigation, the spokesperson said.
Worcester County State’s Attorney Beau Oglesby charged Rollins with disorderly conduct and indecent exposure on Monday. Other publications reporting on the arrest include the Cecil Whig, the Baltimore Sun and Delmarva Now.
Rollins told the Cecil Whig on Monday that he is innocent. Oglesby decided to file charges “based on one side of the story,” Rollins said. “He has not heard my side of the story. I am confident when that happens, my name will be cleared.”
Rollins’ wife, Holly Robbins, told the Cecil Whig in a statement on Sunday that she and her husband had been spied on from the confines of their hotel room.
“While my husband and I were vacationing in Ocean City last week, a stranger watched and photographed us through the window of our 10th floor hotel room,” the statement said. “The person who took these actions was in a separate hotel some distance from ours. During the next 24 hours, while completely within the confines of our room, our intimate movements and activities were documented and shared publicly.”
Rollins is currently running for a vacant judgeship previously held by his late father and by his late grandfather.
