This is Penny Winters, a 63-year-old worker who has been criminally charged with stealing from Walmart. The object of her felonious fancy? A bag of Oreos. That’s right, she was caught by Walmart security on camera eating some cookies and then fired and arrested.

Walmart launched the investigation after an empty cookie wrapper was discovered in the store. They then watched hours of security film and saw Winters eat the cookies while working on the maintenance crew. The entire crime is recounted with chilling details in the report: “Ms. Winters select the package of cookies, open it, and proceed to consume multiple cookies during her work shift.” The store also told officers that it was not one oreo but “multiple cookies.” The store says that when confronted by one of its “asset protection managers” (which I think used to be called store security), she confused to her heinous offense. She told the investigator that she “simply did not have the monies to legitimately purchase the food items.” She makes roughly $11 an hour.

She has now been arrested for felony theft. Her charging sheet also show receipt and possession of stolen goods, which may be other edible objects.

I am not sure what the cut off is for a felony in Indiana but most states require something a bit more than $5. I would truly love to know the officers and prosecutor who charge this as a felony. Indeed, I am surprised it was charged at all as a crime. She was fired. That seems a strict enough response. I suppose in Indiana they feel that they cut her some stack by not charging every cookie as a separate count of theft (or multiply each count by two if she one of those odd people who separate the Oreo and eat the icing separately).

Source: Smoking Gun

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