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A former Olympic athlete’s life has been turned upside down due to a false shoplifting arrest that occurred in March.

Meaggan Pettipiece, a 48-year-old former Olympic athlete originally from Canada, was using the self-checkout at a Walmart in Indiana on March 28th when the machine failed to scan some asparagus and ham.

Although she paid $176 for her total order, excluding the unscanned asparagus and ham, Walmart security called the cops on her, and she was arrested on a multitude of charges, including theft.

The other charges — possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance — were due to the three disposable vapes and two packets of the medication Zofran in her purse.

There was just one problem, besides the fact that the “theft” of the asparagus and ham had been accidental.

“The vape was neither nicotine nor THC-based,” according to the National Post. “The pills were a prescription and belonged to an assistant coach. The coach had asked her to put them in her purse when they were heading into a softball game a few days earlier because the coach didn’t want to bring her purse to the game.”

Following her arrest, Pettipiece resigned as the head coach of Valparaiso University’s softball team on April 1st in disgrace.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that an application for dismissal filed by her attorneys — one including character references, proof of the assistant’s prescription, and her version of the story — was approved by justice officials, and her charges were dropped on Sept. 19th.

The problem, of course, is that the damage has already been done.

“It is bittersweet,” Pettipiece said. “I’m happy, obviously, the charges were dismissed. The sad part is the damage it did to my career. It has changed everything in my life.”

“It’s been five months, a living nightmare. I lost my career, I lost my job, the life I was building and it’s been really difficult,” she added.

In addition to derailing her career, it appears the shoplifting incident also cost her some friends and allies.

“The softball community is a tight-knit group and it [the news] went through like wildfire,” she said. “You really do learn who the people are that really believe in you and trust you and are truly a friend for you.”

The only silver lining is that instead of living away from her family, who are located in Ohio, she’s now back home since she’s no longer working for Valparaiso University.

“I’m happy my family’s all back together,” she said. “We sacrificed as a family for me to be there coaching and continuing my coaching career.”

As for her career, she acknowledged that it’s sustained “damage that can’t be reversed.”

“The tough thing is, how do you get out to people that you are innocent? And this damage was done for something so ridiculous,” she said. “I’m not sure of the future. For now, I’m going to stay at home and focus on my kids. I’d like to figure out which direction I’m going to go in.”

All this comes months after Walmart began nixing its self-checkout lanes in some stores because of rampant shoplifting and theft.

“In two stores – in Shrewsbury, Missouri, and Cleveland, Ohio – the retailer said it would replace kiosks with staffed checkout lanes which will ‘give our associates the chance to provide more personalized and efficient service,’” the Daily Mail reported.

“In reality, many retailers are ditching self-checkout kiosks because they are especially vulnerable to shoplifters – and the biggest retailer in the world’s U-turn could be a landmark moment,” the media outlet noted.

“Most of the rollback of self-checkouts is due to retailer concerns over theft,” Neil Saunders, the managing director of GlobalData, said. “Theft rates at self-checkouts are reasonably high both because of deliberate actions and accidental mistakes. Forcing more customers to use manned checkouts resolves a lot of these issues and saves retailers money.”

Vivek Saxena
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