There’s the bottom of the barrel. There’s scraping the bottom of the barrel. There’s plunging through the bottom of the barrel and into the bedrock. And then there’s Wayne Dingus, the Republican mayor of Butler, Ohio.
Dingus (and I swear that is his real name) has been contacted by Richland County Children’s Services after they received a video of “an adult male going through [a child’s] bedroom, picking up her underwear and smelling it.”
So, how do you get a video of your mayor sniffing a teen girl’s panties? Well, officials contacted the girl – Dingus’ stepdaughter – at her high school, and she told them she’d become suspicious that Dingus was sneaking into her bedroom. And so, on Jan. 13, she hid a motion-activated camera in her room and left for school.
Butler, Ohio Republican Mayor Wayne Dingus was charged with voyeurism after he was caught sniffing an underage girl’s underwear. pic.twitter.com/m6QLvCcRAY
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 20, 2026
Just 15 minutes after she’d left, her phone buzzed with a notification that motion had been detected in her bedroom. She watched the footage, doubtless horrified to see Dingus sneaking in, finding her underwear, and taking a long sniff. The same scene was repeated the next day, showing Dingus searching for her used panties and sniffing them while touching his groin.
Folks, they’re not sending their best
"Panty-sniffing Mayor Wayne Dingus" is a Noah Hawley character from Fargo and you can't convince me otherwise. https://t.co/q07EsuBroq
— Zach Buchanan (@ZHBuchanan) February 20, 2026
Dingus is now facing voyeurism charges and was arraigned on Feb. 19, pleading not guilty. Magistrate John McCollister set bond at $10,000 (with a 10% provision). The court has ordered a strict no-contact order with the minor and mandated electronic monitoring. But, somehow, he remains the mayor of the town.
In a weird twist, this isn’t even Dingus’s first brush with the law. In July 2025, he briefly made national headlines after allegedly striking a wanted parole violator with his car during a police chase. This led him to be dubbed something of a hero. It’s probably safe to say that nobody’s calling him a hero now.
We can only hope that Dingus is thoroughly investigated and his hard drive closely examined. Because, let’s face it, if he’s on video doing this, he’s probably into some even crazier stuff online. We’re just glad his stepdaughter caught him in the act before this could escalate.
