Pillsbury Doughboy's Assassin Sentenced.........
abcnews.go.com
Sept. 22 — A Pennsylvania man convicted of
pinching and crushing hundreds of dollars worth
of baked goods in local supermarkets must seek
psychological help or risk going to jail, a judge
ruled today.
Prosecutors claimed Samuel Feldman,
37, was on a three-year bread-squeezing
spree at a series of stores in Lower
Makefield, Pa., routinely poking holes in
cookie wrappers and loaves of bread,
rendering them unsellable.
Feldman could have faced possible
probation and up to a $1,000 fine, but it
looks like he squeezed by without
punishment. Judge David Heckler
postponed sentencing indefinitely today.
He suggested Feldman see a psychologist for evaluation
of what the judge said was a compulsive behavioral
problem.
Heckler said could have sentenced Feldman to jail time,
but said he would not impose punishment as long as
Feldman got whatever kind of treatment a health care
professional deemed necessary.
A Bucks County jury had reached a split verdict after six
hours of deliberations Thursday, finding Feldman guilty of
damaging cookies but not bread.
The judge reversed the decision, however, and convicted
Feldman of two counts of criminal mischief for damaging
bread and cookies worth less than $1,000.
Caught Bread-Handed
A surveillance videotape introduced as evidence showed
Feldman manhandling the baked goods on several occasions
at a Lower Makefield Giant Food supermarket, which
suffered $8,000 in damage to its bread and cookies over
three years.
Feldman’s lawyer, Ellis Klein, said his client was only
testing the bread for freshness when he was caught on film,
and that he wasn’t responsible for the previous bakery
assaults at the store.
“Touching multiple loaves of bread does not mean that
you’re damaging. Their whole case is based on an
assumption that he’s acting weird, therefore, he must be the
guy who did it,” he said.
Feldman, who was arrested in January, originally had
been charged with all the baked goods damage at Giant
Foods, including 175 bags of bagels, 227 bags of potato
dinner rolls, and more than 3,000 bags of sliced bread.
Defense attorneys had argued that since police didn’t
fingerprint the goods, they couldn’t prove Feldman was
responsible.
Feldman, a salesman, relocated from Lower Makefield,
Pa., to Las Vegas this summer.
‘He Was Pretty Good at It’
Residents had wondered about the mysterious attacks on
rye, wheat and other loaves since 1997, when the first
sqeezings were reported.
Before installing its video surveillance system, Giant Food
hired extra security personnel to stand guard over the
targeted aisle.
But their suspect continued to elude them, striking nearly
every day. “He was pretty good at it,” said store manager
Jay Zeltt back in June. “Very quick.”
“There’s plenty of people laughing about it now,” Zeltt
said. “But at the time it was going on, it was a very serious
situation.”
“If it was one store, it’s one thing. But, then, when you’ve
got five stores and you’re having the same problem, it counts
up to a lot of money,” said cookie distributor Bob Krause.
Feldman’s problems are apparently not over yet,
however. Owners of a Yardley supermarket are suing him
for damaging thousands of dollars worth of bread at their
store. |
