OMG I never saw his picture before!
Conan had a segment about it
Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
November 21, 2000 Edition: CEdition: NORTH
Section: NEIGHBORS
Page: B01
Topics:
Index Terms:
SENTENCE
BREAD SQUEEZER SENTENCED TO PROBATION SAMUEL FELDMAN MUST ALSO PAY $1,000 IN RESTITUTION. HE HAD BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF DAMAGING BAKED GOODS. Author: Oshrat Carmiel, INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF
Article Text:
Samuel Feldman, convicted in September for a two-year spree of bread and cookie destruction in a Yardley supermarket, was sentenced yesterday to 180 days' probation and ordered to make $1,000 in restitution payment.
He also received a severe scolding from Bucks County Court Judge David Heckler, who demanded that Feldman own up to what Heckler described as vandalism.
Feldman, who was found guilty of two counts of criminal mischief with damages limited to $500 on each count, repeatedly denied throughout his September trial that, from 1997 to 1999, he had knowingly poked and prodded baked goods to the point that the goods became permanently damaged. At trial, his attorney, Ellis Klein, insisted that Feldman was just a picky shopper, intent on finding the freshest loaf.
Heckler, who had delayed the sentencing so that Feldman could undergo a psychiatric evaluation, did not accept that argument and demanded that Feldman admit some intentional wrongdoing or, perhaps, face jail time.
"You need to start with the proposition that, in fact, you engaged in behavior that was not just odd, it was criminal," Heckler told Feldman. "You caused harm to people."
The two charges of criminal mischief could have carried a maximum penalty of six months in prison, Klein said. The sentence - two consecutive 90-day probation periods, payment of $500 each to the bread and cookie distributors he targeted, and ongoing psychiatric counseling - was fitting, Klein said.
"You get wife-beaters getting probation. You get sexual offenders getting probation. Certainly, the guy damaging bread shouldn't get anything worse than that," Klein said.
Feldman, a 38-year-old advertising salesman who remained reticent throughout the trial, took the stand in his defense at the sentencing. He said he had been examined by two psychiatrists in Las Vegas, where he now lives, and that neither had concluded that he had, in Klein's words, "diagnosable mental illnesses."
According to Klein, the second psychiatrist's conclusions were made after talking to Feldman, reading the trial transcripts, and watching the sequence of supermarket surveillance videos. In the videos, Feldman is seen manhandling boxes of cookies and running his hand across dozens of loaves of bread. He was accused, but not convicted, of causing $7,100 in damage to Freihofer's bread and almost $800 in damages to Archway cookies.
"I do touch too much bread, yes, more than the next person," Feldman said in a slight voice, with his head low.
But Heckler said he was troubled by a part of the psychiatric evaluation in which the doctor quoted Feldman as saying that the real bread squeezer was still on the loose.
"The statement that some other person in this area had been doing this damage and that you just happened to wander into the crosshairs at the same time is inconsistent with the jury's findings, and I don't believe it," Heckler said.
Heckler, who took a recess to ponder an appropriate sentence, came back and told Feldman that he must admit some wrongdoing, saying that mangling bread was no different from vandalizing "the neighbors' car or their house."
Klein, sensing that the judge was alluding to a potential jail sentence, argued that such a sentence would be inappropriate. Feldman's wife, Sharon, dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Robert and Betty Krauss, distributors of Archway cookies, whose fruit-filled confections Feldman poked at the Giant Supermarket in Yardley, sat at rapt attention.
"Say you're sorry. Say you're sorry. That's all I was thinking," Betty Krauss said afterward.
Feldman eventually apologized "for causing any inconvenience."
"I do have a problem," he finally said. "Anytime I go shopping, my wife will supervise and will be with me."
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