No less miserable
This AP story caught my attention:
Man faces long prison term over doughnut theft
FARMINGTON, Mo. – It’s a hefty price for a pastry: A man accused of stealing a 52-cent doughnut could face time in jail.
Authorities said Scott A. Masters, 41, slipped the doughnut into his sweat shirt without paying, then pushed away a clerk who tried to stop him as he fled the store.
The push is being treated as minor assault, which transforms a misdemeanor shoplifting charge to a strong-armed robbery with a potential prison term of five to 15 years. Because he has a criminal history, prosecutors say they could seek 30 years.
“Strong-arm robbery? Over a doughnut? That’s impossible,” Masters told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from jail. He admitted that he took the pastry but denied touching the employee. “There’s no way I would’ve pushed a woman over a doughnut.”
Farmington Police Chief Rick Baker said state law treats the shoplifting and assault as forcibly stealing property. The amount of force and value of the property doesn’t matter.
“It’s not the doughnut,” Baker said. “It’s the assault.”
Masters said he didn’t even get to enjoy his ill-gotten gains: He threw the doughnut away as he fled.
You may recall this as eerily similar to the major plotline in “Les Miserables,” in which Jean Valjean is sentenced to five years’ hard time for stealing a loaf of bread. This is the entirety of the AP story, while “Les Miserables” is only slightly shorter than the 30 years’ war. Proving once again that whether or not truth is stranger than fiction, fiction tends to be longer.
One further difference: Jean Valjean is a noble figure who later shows mercy to his tormentor, Javert, and who steals the bread to feed his starving family; he is someone struggling against whom the ills of French society and, as such, represents a plea on behalf of the author for justice and reform. (A la Dickens.) In the story of the boosted doughnut, we have a lout who has already done hard time who stole a doughnut rather than pay 52ยข for it and shoved around a clerk who tried to stop it. Some people just can’t learn a lesson from the justice systm, and this person sounds like one of them. Whether or not he does 30 years for the misappropriated pastry, I’m sure law enforcement hasn’t heard the last of him. That he didn’t get to consume the cruller makes the irony all the more delicious.