Legal Juice
Can you really be charged with a felony for throwing a soda? At a machine? Yup. As reported by The Gainesville Sun:
Upset that his order wasn’t prepared correctly, a 30-year-old man is accused of throwing his soda on a cash register at a Taco Bell in Gainesville on Sunday night, shutting down the restaurant’s computer network for several hours.
Doh! The whole “computer network.” Hence the felony …
Suresh A. Chapman, of Gainesville, was charged with damaging a computer resulting in a loss of $5,000 or more, a second-degree felony.
Police said he threw his soft drink at the register and credit card machine at the Taco Bell at 3408 Archer Road at about 8 p.m., causing an estimated $2,500 worth of damage.
The damage to the computer network meant the store lost about $3,000 in revenue, according to a Gainesville Police Department report.
How much time could you get for that?
GPD spokeswoman Cpl. Angelina Valuri said Officer Sean Borges was right to charge Chapman with the second-degree felony, which can carry a 15-year prison sentence.
Yikes. Adding injury to injury …
Because of the arrest, Chapman also was charged with violating his probation on a 2011 child abuse case, according to the arrest report.
Mr. Chapman is cooling off in a jail cell.
While the bond was set at $5,000 for the computer damage charge, Chapman was being held Monday at the Alachua County jail without bond because he had been charged with violating his probation.
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