Florida Man Awarded $37,500 After Police Mistook Krispy Kreme Doughnut Glaze For Meth

A man in Florida has been awarded a $37,500 settlement after being arrested when his Krispy Kreme doughnuts tested false-positive for crystal meth. 

NPR reports that in December 2015, Daniel Rushing had just dropped his friend at chemotherapy and was giving an elderly woman a ride home when police allegedly pulled him over for speeding and failing to come to a complete halt at the stop sign. When Officer Shelby Riggs-Hopkins obtained Rushing's license, she noticed the 64-year-old had a concealed-weapons permit. Rushing confirmed he had a pistol and was asked to step outside the vehicle for the officer's safety.

Four officers were granted permission to search Rushing's car, where they found white flakes of a crystal-like substance on the floorboard. When police used a field testing kit on the matter, it tested false-positive for methamphetamine.

Rushing claimed the results were impossible, as he'd never before even smoked a cigarette. Upon reviewing the substance, he informed authorities it was glaze from a Krispy Kreme doughnut, which he gets every other Wednesday. Alas, no one believed him, and he spent 10 hours in jail before being released on bail.

Orlando police sent the evidence away for further testing and found it actually was not a controlled substance. All charges against Rushing were dropped.

"I thought [the lawsuit] was the right thing to do, for what they did to me," Rushing told NPR.

Now that he's won the case, Rushing is working on getting his record cleared to pursue a job in security — something difficult to accomplish with an arrest for meth possession on his file.

For more on doughnuts, check out the 15 things you didn't know about Krispy Kreme.