[imagesource: WGME/CNN]
Things have gone from bad to worse for Nicholas Mitchell of Dover, New Hampshire.
After being arrested on charges of domestic violence and a probation violation in April 2020, Mitchell began living in his car.
At the time, he was working at a local pizza dough manufacturer called It’ll Be Pizza, but was soon fired for being consistently late and often not showing up at all.
The dough manufacturer supplies Hannaford stores as well as the small pizzeria chain Portland Pie Company.
The 39-year-old man had apparently been struggling with mental health and substance abuse problems for much of his life, and the COVID-19 pandemic just made everything that much more difficult:
At some point during his downward spiral, Mitchell decided to take revenge on the company that fired him by planting razor blades and screws in the pizza dough, The New York Times reported:
Security camera videos showed Mr. Mitchell, 39, of Dover, N.H., tampering with dough from Portland Pie Company in a refrigerator case and leaving the supermarket without making a purchase, the authorities said.
No one was reported injured, but prosecutors said that three customers and a store employee discovered razor blades in the dough.
After this came to light, Hannaford was quick to remove all Portland Pie fresh dough and cheese products from its stores.
It also recalled its products from chains across five states, which really hurt the company’s bottom line.
When Mitchell confessed to his crimes, he said that was pretty much his exact goal:
Mr. Mitchell gave a tearful apology during his sentencing by videoconference on Thursday in Federal District Court in Portland, The Portland Press Herald reported.
“I think it’s very important to clarify here that my intentions were never to harm anybody, only to disrupt my former employer’s bottom line,” Mr. Mitchell said, according to the newspaper.
After pleading guilty in June to tampering with the dough being sold at a supermarket in Maine, Mitchell was served four years and nine months in prison yesterday, reported Sky News:
Under the agreement, Mitchell agreed not to appeal a sentence that was no greater than four years and nine months. The maximum penalty for product tampering is 10 years in prison.
The downward spiral just worsened when Mitchell contracted COVID-19 in jail.
Plus, along with the jail sentence, Mitchell was ordered to pay restitution to Hannaford Supermarkets:
Under the terms of his sentence, Mr. Mitchell will be required to pay Hannaford nearly $191 000 in restitution for pizza dough and nearly $35 000 for pizza made in its stores, as well as $4 000 for labor.
From October 2020 to November 2020, dough sales plummeted by 82 percent, while in-store pizza sales fell by 89 percent, according to court records.
That’s a total amount of $230 000 (around R3,7 million).
Quite how he will pay that while he languishes in prison is unclear.
