Florida man cleared in Krispy Kreme drug caper

Glaze found on floorboard mistaken for crystal meth, leading to retiree’s arrest

ORLANDO, FLA.— Daniel Rushing, 64, treats himself to a Krispy Kreme doughnut every other Wednesday. He used to eat them in his car.

Not anymore. Not since a pair of Orlando police officers pulled him over at about 1p.m. on Dec.11, spotted four tiny flakes of glaze on his floorboard and arrested him, saying they were pieces of crystal methamphetamine.

The officers did two roadside drug tests and both came back positive for the illegal substance, according to his arrest report.

He was handcuffed, arrested, taken to the county jail and strip searched, he said.

A state crime lab, however, did another test several weeks later and cleared him.

“It was incredible,” he said. “It feels scary when you haven’t done anything wrong and get arrested . . . It’s just a terrible feeling.”

“I kept telling them, ‘That’s . . . glaze from a doughnut.’ They tried to say it was crack cocaine at first, then they said, ‘No, it’s meth, crystal meth.’ ”

His arrest report confirms that he tried to tell them.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, an analyst in its Orlando crime lab did not try to identify what police found in his car.

She only checked to determine whether it was an illegal drug and confirmed that it was not.

Three days later, the State Attorney’s Office in Orlando filed paperwork, saying that it was dropping the case.

Rushing, who retired after 25 years as an Orlando parks department employee, has hired a lawyer and is asking the city to pay him damages.