Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

FedEx driver charged with rape, sexual assault

Police fear Washington teens victimized

WASHINGTON — A FedEx driver has been arrested and charged with sexually abusing several teenagers in the town of Washington, under the age of 17, according to the New York State Police (NYSP) Bureau of Criminal Investigation from the Salt Point barracks.  

Thirty-year-old Joshua J. Ginyard of Poughkeepsie was arrested on Wednesday, Aug. 25, and charged with two counts of Rape 3rd Degree, two counts of Criminal Sexual Act 3rd Degree, two counts of Disseminating Indecent Material to a Minor, all felonies. He was also charged with the Class A Misdemeanor charge of Forcible Touching.  

According to the Troop K Newsroom, Troopers received information pertaining to a local FedEx driver who had allegedly sexually abused several teens on Sunday, Aug. 15. 

An investigation conducted by the NYSP revealed that Ginyard would pick up the teens in his FedEx truck while he was on his route during work hours.  According to investigators, he would then “transport them to a remote location in the town of Washington,” where he would give them marijuana. While inside of the delivery truck, according to the police, “Ginyard had sexual intercourse and oral sex with one of the juveniles on two separate occasions. Additionally, he forcibly touched another teen while inside of the truck.”

With assistance from the Troop K Computer Crimes Unit and the Dutchess County Child Advocacy Center, Ginyard was arrested on Aug. 17. In addition the charges listed above, he was also charged with two counts of Disseminating Indecent Materials to a Minor for sending sexually explicit text messages to two of the juveniles.  

Ginyard was then arraigned in the Town of Washington Court and released on his own recognizance.

After digging deeper into the case, days later, on Aug. 23, authorities again arrested Ginyard and charged him with two counts of Rape, two counts of a Criminal Sexual Act and Forcible Touching. 

The defendant was then arraigned on those charges before the Town of Washington Court and remanded to the Dutchess County Jail in lieu of $25,000 cash bail or $50,000 bond.  Ginyard is due to reappear in the Town of Washington Court at a later date and time. 

According to the NYSP, additional charges are pending.

The Millbrook Police Department, the Dutchess County Child Advocacy Center and the Dutchess County District Attorney’s Office assisted the NYSP in its investigation.  

Anyone who believes they may be the victim of a crime perpetuated by Ginyard is asked to contact Investigator Melissa McMorris at 845-677-7372.

Latest News

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sons of Astro are musicians, friends and bandmates — in that order

The Sons of Astro will be at the Common Pub in Housatonic on Oct. 24 and the 2nd Home Lounge in Winsted on Nov. 14.

Provided

No matter where they are in the world, musicians seem to find other musicians. There’s a shared language, a shared experience of being on stage and performing, and a shared enthusiasm for making those melodies by themselves or together. Such is the case with Norfolk and Brooklyn-based cosmic Americana band Sons of Astro.

That magnetic musicians’ bond drew Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Cobb into the orbit of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Statler. The two neighbors took to each other right away and were soon playing open mics together. As an ethics professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Statler made the case that if he sat in for Cobb’s set and Cobb sat in for Statler’s, they could play together and double their stage time. Clearly, these men wanted to make as much music as possible. That became a little harder when Cobb and his family moved up to Norfolk, Connecticut.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.