D’oh! A potential life sentence for stealing a single doughnut?

A kind reader sent me this local story from the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch about a case that sounds almost as if it came from the pages of a script for The Simpsons.  The headline is “52-cent doughnut may cost man 30 years to life,” and here are the basics:

Country Mart’s doughnuts — fried fresh daily in the store — sell for just 52 cents each. That is why the “shoplifters will be prosecuted” signs are displayed in aisle 4 with the pricey pain and allergy pills, and not in aisle 5 beside the glass doughnut case with its tiger tails, jelly-filleds and eclairs.  Then one man’s sweet tooth got the better of him. He stole a doughnut.  A single doughnut.

Authorities called it strong-arm robbery. The “doughnut man,” as the suspect is now known, faces five to 15 years in prison for his crime.  And Farmington, a town of 14,000 people about 70 miles south of St. Louis, has been buzzing about it ever since.   “That someone would take just a single doughnut, not something very expensive or extravagant, that’s unique,” supermarket assistant manager Gary Komar said, smiling.

Scott A. Masters, 41, is accused of shoplifting the pastry and pushing a store worker who tried to stop him.  The worker was unhurt.  But with that shove, his shoplifting turned into a strong-arm robbery. Masters, who appeared in court Friday, is stunned.  The prosecutor shows no signs of backing down.  In fact, because Masters has a prior record, he could get a sentence of 30 years to life.