Sex Toy Attack Was Self-Defense: Woman Accused Of Threatening Cop With Dildo Speaks

A woman who made news for attacking a police officer with a "clear, rigid feminine pleasure device" is claiming that she was acting in self-defense.

Carolee Bildsten was found by a police officer lying in the grass down the street from a Joe's Crab Shack in Gurnee, Illinois last November. She told the officer that she had eaten at the restaurant but forgotten her wallet at home, and was heading back to get money to pay her tab.

The policeman drove Bildsten to her house in his squad car, and she went inside to grab her money. As TribLocal reported at the time, she told the officer her money was in her sock drawer, but opened the drawer and pulled out a sex toy instead. She "held it over her head and approached the officer in a threatening manner," according to the police report.

Bildsten was charged with aggravated assault against an officer. But she told TribLocal a different story yesterday:

"I'm counting my cash to make sure I take out enough, and the officer walks into my bedroom and startles me," Bildsten said, adding that she had recently read an article about a Gurnee police officer who was convicted of sexual assault, which made her nervous.

"I don't know, it was just this male police officer and me in the apartment, and he startled me," she said.

Bildsten said she never attacked the officer with the sex toy. She just "instinctively raised it up in a defensive move."

When asked why she chose the pleasure device to defend herself with, Bildsten said, "The only thing in my sock drawer besides my socks and my cash was a dildo.'

She has a hearing scheduled on the 27th in the case, and intends to plead not guilty.