Cake Kicker Gets Community Service for ‘Temper Tantrum’: Watch

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI — The by-now infamous Bloomfield Township cake kicker, who became so enraged at the decorating job on her son’s birthday cake that she gave it the boot in the middle of a grocery store bakery, got a stern lecture from the judge who sentenced her to community service Thursday — ideally at a place where people survive on the kindness of strangers.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, here’s a recap:

Tricia Ann Kortes, 46, pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct charges stemming from a bizarre incident at a Bloomfield Township Kroger store last June. She had ordered a “Batman v. Superman”-themed cake for a party to celebrate her 7-year-old son’s birthday, but thought the bakery had botched it. The real trouble began bakery workers stopped her from going behind the bakery counter and fix the cake herself, according to a Bloomfield Township police report.

“This infuriated the woman, causing her to take the cake to the front of the counter and ‘drop kick’ it,” Bloomfield Township police Det. Sgt. John Weise said at the time.

During Kortes’ sentencing Thursday, 48th District Court Judge Kimberly Small had little sympathy for Kortes’ tantrum over the cake and ordered her to perform 300 hours of community service.

Ideally, Kortes will serve her community service soup kitchen or homeless shelter so she can see how people who don’t have the advantages of residents of Bloomfield Township, one of the state’s most exclusive areas, cope with their challenges, her attorney, Gerald Gleeson said.

Gleeson said “the real Tricia Kortes has gotten lost in the media’s fascination over the case” and that as a result, Kortes has gotten “Metro Detroit’s scarlet letter for 2016,” and has been vilified by the public and the media, whose accounts of his client’s behavior have not gone unnoticed by her children.

He called her “a good person who truly cares about other people,” and said she is “invested in her therapy.”

See Also

• ‘Infuriated’ Customer ‘Drop Kicks’ Son’s Birthday Cake: Police
• Accused Cake Kicker Now Alleged Ice Cream-Slapper

“My God, you have it well. You live a beautiful life,” Small said. “And you’re upset over a cake?”

Small said she was concerned that “something as trivial as a design on a cake literally threw you into a tizzy.”

“Here you are, in the middle of a public place, drop-kicking a cake and dropping the f-bomb,” the judge said. “If I was shopping with a child, I would be horrified. And, quite frankly, I think the child would be horrified, too.”

Besides the community service, Kortes was ordered to pay a $500 fine an $350 costs, the maximum fine allowed; was placed on probation for one year; and was banned from Kroger supermarkets.

The pre-sentencing report showed no indication of mental illness, which Small said she assumed would be an issue when she first heard about the cake kicking incident.

“You seem to throw temper tantrums when you don’t get what you want when you want it,” Small said.

Kortes admitted she has trouble keeping her temper in check, but said she is seeing a therapist and plans to continue to do so. She apologized and said she is “truly embarrassed” by her behavior.

Gleeson said Kortes has completed anger management classes ordered by a Troy judge after she pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from a fight with a co-worker in Troy last year. In that incident, she was accused of shoving and hitting her colleague with a cellphone.

“Let me tell you this,” Small said, “if you violate the law again, if you have any trouble with your community service that you are doing, I am going to get your attention, and I am going to get it with some jail time.”

Kortes’ legal problems aren’t over. She’s due in court in Royal Oak on Oct. 6 for a July 2015 incident in which she allegedly slapped the manager of an ice cream shop because it was out of the flavor of ice cream she wanted to order.

In that case, she faces assault and battery charges. The manager of Ray’s Ice Cream shop recognized Kortes from media accounts about the cake kicking.

Photo via Royal Oak Police Department