Man arrested for forgetting to pay for pop

Published: April 8, 2008 at 9:21 PM

CLEVELAND , April 8 (UPI) -- A Cleveland man says he was arrested after mistakenly leaving a store without paying for a $4 case of soda among his two cartloads of groceries.

Tom Sturgis said he paid for $157.20 worth of groceries at the self checkout lane of a Brooklyn, Ohio, supermarket and walked out the door not realizing he had forgotten to pay for the soda, which was on the shelf under the cart, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported Tuesday.

Sturgis said a police officer working security asked to see his receipt.

"I went looking for the receipt, the pop wasn't on it and they decided to have me arrested," he said.

"It's over a case of pop," said Sturgis' wife Wendy. "He turned around and offered to go back in and pay for it and the cop told him it's like robbing a bank, you just can't get caught robbing a bank and say, 'I'm sorry, I'll give you your money back.'"

Sturgis, who was charged with petty theft, spent 3 1/2 hours in jail, from 11:30 p.m. until 3 a.m.

© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Order reprints



Additional News Stories
UPI NewsTrack Sports (21 min)
Police ticket Thanksgiving racers (23 min)
NBA: Orlando 93, Atlanta 76 (27 min)
NHL: Ottawa 2, Columbus 1 (39 min)
Colorado to keep Hawkins as coach
NFL: Dallas 24, Oakland 7
Rejected Gingrich gift goes to pit bulls
fark
Oxymoron headline: Swimmer drowns
Photoshop theme: Inappropriate celebrity product endorsements
Rare Winston Churchill TV screen test to be shown, get more viewers than "The Jay Leno Show"
"Hey kids, Daddy's going to run into the sailing shop and pick up a few things. Why don't you two...
Drug mule claims that he had no idea that the 67 packages he swallowed contained 2.2 lbs of cocaine...
Coed dorms leading to a massive increase in the obvious