80-year-old arrested for harassment

Published 12:16 am Thursday, May 29, 2014

A former Gantt mayor with a history of harassment and menacing charges was taken into custody again Tuesday for allegedly peering through a neighbor’s window at a woman inside the home, according to Gantt Chief of Police Wesley Snodgrass.

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Snodgrass said 80-year-old Thomas L. Glidewell was arrested and charged with misdemeanor harassment and misdemeanor criminal trespassing after the neighbor produced photographic evidence of the offense.

“I don’t know if it was voyeurism or a lack of consideration, but based on the allegations and the fact that the neighbor has evidence of Mr. Glidewell on his property, very close to his residence, we take it very seriously,” Snodgrass said.

Glidewell has been arrested on several occasions, including two incidents in 2007, as well as a 2012 charge that involved peering at persons through the scope of a gun. Snodgrass said that arrest on charges of menacing led to a conviction that included a suspended jail sentence.

“He was ordered to not be within X number of feet from city hall unless he was voting or paying a bill,” he said, adding a conviction on current charges could lead to jail time for the elderly suspect.

“(Glidewell) had been accused before of watching women and children at his neighbor’s house from across the property line, and words had been exchanged,” Snodgrass said, adding that the circumstances surrounding his subsequent arrest Tuesday afternoon only added to an already strange situation.

“I was performing a traffic stop on U.S. Hwy. 29 and (Glidewell) stopped in the middle of the road, straddling the line, I guess to see what was going on,” he said. “He actually pulled off, circled around and came back again. He caused a severe traffic hazard, nearly causing two traffic accidents.”

Snodgrass said he performed a traffic stop on Glidewell’s vehicle and cited him for reckless driving, not wearing a seatbelt and not using a turn signal, before arresting him on the outstanding warrants.

Glidewell was booked into the Covington County Jail in Andalusia on a $1,000 cash bond and was released on that bond Wednesday morning.