Krispy Kreme Doughnut Glaze Mix-Up Led to Meth Arrest, Man Says

ORLANDO, FL — That sticky, sweet glaze that makes Krispy Kreme doughnuts so hard to pass by (especially when the bright red “Hot Now” light is illuminated in a store window) can also lead to a case of mistaken identity. At least that’s the contention of an Orlando man, who says he was falsely arrested last year after a cop thought doughnut glaze flakes were crystal meth.

Daniel Rushing, 64, was arrested last Dec. 11 after an Orlando Police officer pulled him over for failing to stop when leaving a 7-Eleven store. Rushing was also clocked doing 42 mph on a road with a 30 mph limit, a police report said.

When the officer asked for Rushing’s license, the officer noticed he had a concealed weapons permit, the report said. Since he was armed, the officer asked Rushing to get out of the vehicle.

That’s when Rushing’s day really got bad.

The officer happened to note a “rock like substance” on the floor near his feet as he exited the vehicle.

“I recognized, through my eleven years of training and experience as a law enforcement officer, the substance to be some sort of narcotic,” the police report said.

The substance was field tested twice. Both times it tested positive for amphetamines, the report noted.

Rushing, however, insisted it was not.

“Rushing stated that he has never done any drugs in his life,” the officer noted in the report. “Rushing stated that the substance is sugar from a Krispie Kreme Donut that he ate.”

The officer didn’t buy the story. Rushing was charged with possession of methamphetamine while being in possession of a firearm.

Vindication for Rushing came on Jan. 26, when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s lab confirmed the “rock like” substance found on Rushing’s floorboard was not a controlled substance. The state’s lab didn’t check further to actually identify the substance. The lab report, however, was enough to get the State Attorney’s Office in Orlando to drop the case against Rushing, the Sun Sentinel reported.

Rushing took his story to the media this week, saying his victory from the crime lab was sweet, but he’d still like some compensation for his troubles.

“I got arrested for no reason at all,” the paper quoted Rushing as saying.

Rushing has said he intends to sue the city for damages related to the arrest. He was held in jail for about 10 hours before being released in lieu of $2,500 bond. It is unclear how much in damages he’ll seek.

As for why the field tests came back positive in the first place, there’s no explanation. Rushing told the Sun Sentinel he no longer intends to get his Krispy Kreme doughnut fix while he’s in his car.

Photo By Unisouth (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons