A Summerfield man is accused of attacking his lady friend early Monday morning when she told him he couldn’t smoke inside their Ocala hotel room.
Marion County sheriff’s deputies responded to the Summerfield ER early and spoke with the victim, who said she and 46-year-old Brett Randall Rimes had stopped at the Sleep Inn & Suites in Ocala after spending the day visiting Yankeetown. She said they had been drinking and didn’t want to drive so they stopped for the night.
The woman said Rimes went outside their room to smoke a cigarette and then came back inside and said he was going to smoke in the room. When she told him he couldn’t do that, the woman said Rimes “punched her in the face multiple times,” a sheriff’s office report states.
Deputies noted that the woman had a swollen left eye that was almost completely shut, a laceration under her eyebrow and a swollen black-and-blue lip. She said she couldn’t get Rimes to leave the room so she contacted a friend to pick her up and take her to the emergency department, the report says.
Deputies then responded to Rimes’ home at 3525 SE 149th Ln. in Summerfield. He claimed he didn’t know the woman was at the hotel. When advised of his rights, he refused to say anything else, the report says, adding that deputies observed blood on Rimes’ hands, the left side of his face and on the left shoulder area of his shirt.
Rimes was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with battery. He was released late Monday morning on $1,000 bond and his next court date hasn’t yet been set, jail records show.
