I’m not even sure where to start here… this is just too outrageous. (Updated info below)
An owner of a produce store says six months in jail is too much for two Rainbow Family members who plucked discarded fruit and vegetables from the trash this summer.Jonathon Hieb, co-owner of the Sweet Pea Produce, said Saturday he told the prosecutor he didn’t want anything to do with the case against Giles Charle, 24, and David Siller, 27, arrested June 26 taking overripe fruit and vegetables from a locked garbage area at his store.

Charle, of Somersworth, N.H., and Siller, of Wayne, Pa., admitted they went over the fence to get to the garbage. They were charged with felony second-degree burglary and misdemeanor theft. But on Wednesday they accepted a deal and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing, agreeing to a 6-month sentence at the Routt County Jail to avoid a felony conviction…

We didn’t have any intention of committing a crime or doing anything wrong,” Charle told the Steamboat Pilot & Today newspaper. “We had just come in town and we were prepared to buy groceries from a store but everything was closed.”

Charle’s mother, Shaune McCarthy Charle, told the newspaper she was “absolutely flabbergasted” by the sentence.

You can follow this incredible story over at the Steamboat Pilot.

My take? I’m a native Coloradoan, travel through Colorado extensively, but will NOT be stopping anywhere near Steamboat Springs. Ever. This is possibly one of the most jaw-dropping accounts of over-prosecution I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen fit to share my feelings both with the Steamboat Pilot and the Steamboat Springs Chamber of Commerce.

Supporters of these two men have even set up a website to support them here.

Updated info here… (9/6)

And as one Steamboat-based blogger sez:

“We used to be the town you could run away to, to get away from the fat heads of Vail and Aspen… and now we are the Fat heads. The new enemy.”

And over at the Daily Pundit, they do the math:

“These desperados will spend the next six months in Routt County Jail and pay $15 restitution to Sweet Pea. St. James also asked Judge James Garrecht to fine the men $42 for each day they serve in jail, the standard cost of care for inmates. Garrecht refused.

(180 days X $42 = $7,560 X 2 inmates = $15,120)”

Update (9/7): Both defendants released from jail! D.A. reduces sentence to the 10 days already spent in jail! What an ending!