JANUARY 28--A Pizza Hut manager last week allegedly retaliated for a prior drunk driving arrest by spitting on food ordered by the same Tennessee sheriff’s deputy who had busted her, according to investigators.

Amanda Engle, 29, was nabbed Thursday for disorderly conduct after the off-duty cop spotted her spitting on a pizza he had ordered for his family.

According to a police report, Unicoi County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Frank Rogers arrived at the Pizza Hut to pick up a dinner order. “The defendant didn’t ask my name however rang up the order,” noted Rogers, who added that he sat down on a bench in front of the counter while waiting to pick up his pizza.

“As the defendant removed the pizza from the oven I observed her cut her eyes and look at me. The defendant then leaned over the pizza that she had began to slice and I observed her spit on the pizza which had been purchased by me,” Rogers wrote.

The deputy immediately confronted Engle and asked if she knew him. “Yes, you’re Frank Rogers,” replied Engle, who was cited last April by Rogers in a DUI case.

After Engle knowingly allowed an intoxicated person to drive her car, she was, per Tennessee law, also charged with drunk driving, according to Sheriff Mike Hensley. During a January 16 court appearance--a week before the Pizza Hut incident--Engle pleaded guilty in the DUI case and was fined $350, sentenced to two days in jail, and placed on probation for one year.

Hensley charged that Engle’s conviction was “fresh on her mind” when she spit on Rogers’s pizza, an action Hensley described as “just a retaliation.”

Charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct, Engle is free on $500 bond and scheduled for a February 20 General Sessions Court appearance. Engle, pictured in the above mug shot, was fired from her Pizza Hut post following the January 23 collar. (2 pages)