Krispy Kreme Worker Tries to Bribe Arresting Officer with Free Doughnuts

Cops love doughnuts. We all know that, because it’s a stereotype that we’ve all seen roughly one billion times, in TV shows and movies, on T-shirts and bumper stickers and in an unsurprising number of those cringe lip sync videos that every police department suddenly feels obligated to make. But even the cops who would test positive for Original Glazed don’t love being bribed with doughnuts—at least not when the briber is already in handcuffs.

According to The Frederick News-Post, a 25-year-old Maryland man is facing an additional misdemeanor after telling his arresting officers that he’d give them free Krispy Kreme doughnuts if they’d un-cuff him and let him “just go home.”

Matthew Tyler Rosenberg was stopped on Thursday night when officers saw him and an unidentified friend looking in the windows of parked cars. Officer Michael Murphy believed that Rosenberg’s behavior was suspicious—and, according to Murphy, so was the fact that Rosenberg was wearing a hat and a hoodie on a humid July night. When the men walked near Murphy’s parked police cruiser, he stepped out, identified himself as a cop and asked the two of them to stop.

According to the officer’s report, Rosenberg started to walk away, even after Murphy told him that he was being detained. “A struggle ensued” when the cops tried to stop him, although it only lasted until Rosenberg was “kneed in the abdomen…[and] finally subdued.” When the officers searched Rosenberg and uncovered an air pistol and a small baggie of weed, he tried to bargain his way out of it, offering the cops a box or two of Krispy Kreme. (He told the officers that he worked for the doughnut chain.)

“I believe that he was serious,” Sgt. Jonathan Shatlock told the News-Post. “He also offered another officer money to let him go free.” The officers declined his doughnuts, and he is facing charges of resisting arrest and attempting to bribe a public employee. He was released from custody after signing a promise to appear in court.

Rosenberg is far from the first dude who’s tried to doughnut his way out of of trouble. Last November, when 25-year-old Craig Barnes refused to leave the bar he’d been kicked out of, he told officers from the Jacksonville (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office that he’d give them $50 and buy them some doughnuts if they’d let him go. When that didn’t work, he upped his offer to $1,000… but also told the cops that he “kills people for a living,” and threatened to shoot them.

And when then 23-year-old Michael Matakaetis was stopped in south Florida on suspicion of DUI, he offered to give his arresting officer a handful of coupons for Dunkin’ Donuts. “You can have these if you just let me park the car and I'll walk home,” Matakaetis said. (According to the Smoking Gun, his father was a “doughnut impresario” and a Dunkin franchisee). But he ALSO threatened to shoot the cops for declining a handful of coupons, which earned him a felony charge on top of the DUI.

The doughnuts, though… that was worth a try.