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An Olympic athlete was arrested after a disaster at a Walmart self-checkout station.
On March 28, former Olympian Meaggan Pettipiece's life was turned upside down after she scanned her ham and asparagus at a Walmart self-checkout machine in Indiana. When security officers saw that she hadn't scanned the items (worth $67), they called the police, even though she had paid $176 for the other food items.
During her arrest, she told officers she was unaware the machine hadn’t scanned the items, but they went ahead with the arrest anyway. When officers searched her purse, they found three disposable vapes, as well as two unopened blister packs containing the anti-nausea drug Zofran, leading them to not only charge her with theft for the unscanned items, but also possession of marijuana and a controlled substance.
Following the arrest, with headlines flooding across the state, Pettipiece resigned from her position as NCAA Division 1 softball coach at Valparaiso University.
However, it was later discovered that the machine did not register her ham and asparagus when it scanned them. Not only that, but the vapes did not contain nicotine or THC, and the anti-nausea pills did not belong to her either. Instead, they belonged to an assistant coach, who reportedly asked the former All-American softball player to carry them during a softball game days before her arrest.
In early September, Pettipiece's attorney filed a motion to dismiss with an account of the incident from his client's perspective, evidence that the medication was the responsibility of his assistant, and letters of recommendation. On Sept. 19, officials dropped the charges against the athlete after reading the filing, but the damage had already been done.
“It's bittersweet,” he admitted to the National Positiont. “I’m happy, obviously, the charges were dismissed. The sad thing is the damage this did to my career. It’s changed everything in my life.”
“I lost my career, I lost my job, the life I was building and it’s been really difficult,” Pettipiece continued, noting that when he resigned five months earlier it was “a living nightmare.”
The charges not only damaged her career, but also her reputation, which was even more painful. The former coach, who had competed with the Canadian national team and played in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, was left to pay the consequences of her wrongful arrest.
“The softball community is a very close-knit group and [the news] “It happened like wildfire,” the Olympian added. “You really learn who the people are that truly believe in you, trust you and are truly your friends.”
Although the charges were dropped, he said he was concerned the consequences could be irreversible.
“The hard part is how to let people know that you are innocent. And this damage was done over something so ridiculous,” Pettipiece said, adding that she planned to focus on her family. “I’m not sure about the future. For now, I’m going to stay home and focus on my kids. I’d like to know what direction I’m going to take.”
