Police say a New Jersey cook put a body hair in the sandwich of a police officer who had given him tickets in the past.



Ryan Burke of Stratford, N.J., was arrested Feb. 21 in the kitchen of Good Foods to Go in Evesham on charges of aggravated assault, food tampering and "retaliation for a past official action," reports the Courier Post.



Burke served a bagel sandwich to a police officer who had ticketed him in March 2009 when he failed to pull over for a traffic violation.



“At first, (Burke) denied placing anything in his food, but then further investigation provided information that he indeed placed body hair in his sandwich," Evesham police Capt. Jeff Gural told the Courier Post.



The 26-year-old says he didn't intentionally put anything in the lunch of the officer, whose name has not been released.



“That's ridiculous," Burke told the Courier Post. "I'm not that kind of person."



Burke said that the officer had come into the restaurant many times before without any incidents.



The cook spent four hours in jail before his wife got him out on $25,000 bail by using the couple’s mortgage payment.



Burke was then promptly fired from the restaurant he has worked at for the past seven years. The now-unemployed father of a 5-month-old says that the police are destroying his life.



"I think that this is absurd," he said. "They decided to ruin my life."



The Courier-Post reports police asked them not to report the incident for fear of copycat crimes. The paper published the story anyway.

