Eastern Washington University student John Richardson was shopping at the Mitchell’s IGA in Cheney, Wash., this past December when he got hungry. And as Costco has taught America, when hunger strikes in the aisles, only a hot dog will do. So he grabbed a delicious wiener from the store’s German-sausage stand and kept shopping. What happened afterward involves a small oversight on Richardson’s part and a large spending spree by Cheney’s Municipal Prosecutor.The Spokesman Review has the story today on Richardson’s hot-dog fiasco.In short, Richardson ate the hot dog while he was shopping, paid for his $28 worth of groceries, then walked out of the store without paying for his 99-cent hot dog.At that point the jig was up–store employees followed him to the parking lot and held him there until police showed up and arrested him. This despite what nearly every report describes as Richardson’s insistence that he simply forgot he ate the thing, and his willingness to pay the dollar for the hot dog right then and there.Instead, he was arrested by the cops and charged with shoplifting by Cheney Municipal Prosecutor Julie McKay.Eventually McKay offered Richardson a plea deal that would have dismissed the shoplifting charge if he’d pay the original $.99 for the dog, plus a $200 penalty for stealing it. Richardon wasn’t biting.”So now the $1 hot dog was a $201 hot dog,” Richter said.So the wiener bandit took his case to trial (the cost of his public defender, McKay’s time, the judge’s time, and the jury pool’s stipends all billed to local taxpayers).In the end it took about five minutes for the jury to say “Yeah, he just forgot to pay for the stupid hot dog” and find him not guilty.McKay tells the Spokesman that she felt she had to try the case.”Did I want to try that? Certainly not,” McKay said. “From my perspective, he took something without paying for it . . . The jury didn’t feel he was guilty. I disagree with that.”After his acquittal, Richardson promptly walked out of the courtroom with a lawyer’s pen he borrowed and never gave back.Expect that case to go trial in a few months. Follow The Daily Weekly on Facebook and Twitter.