Orlando man arrested after police mistake doughnut glaze for meth

ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando man said he's considering taking legal action after he was arrested for having doughnut crumbs in his car.

Dan Rushing said he was wrongfully taken into custody because Orlando police thought the icing crumbs from a Krispy Kreme doughnut were crystal meth.

Police said it was a lawful arrest, and they tested the icing twice with their drug kits.

They said both times it came up as meth.

Channel 9’s Ty Russell sent an email to Orlando police asking if there will be an investigation into the equipment.

A spokesperson said they couldn’t answer that question after hours.

"It's a terrible feeling to go to jail when you have not done anything,” Rushing said.

Rushing’s drug arrest happened in December on a Parramore street.

Orange County court records show Rushing was arrested on a charge of possession of meth.

The case was dropped a month later after Florida Department of Law Enforcement tests determined the substance was in fact icing, not meth.

"I just don't want this to happen to anybody else,” Rushing said.

The original incident happened on Dec. 11 when officers were called to a 7-Eleven on Colonial Boulevard in Orlando for possible drug activity.

Police said Rushing was pulled over after leaving the store for failing to stop at a stop sign and going 42 mph in a 30 mph zone.

Rushing said he gave officers permission to search his car.

“They said, 'We found what we thought was crack cocaine in the beginning, but now we think it's methamphetamine’"  Rushing said.

"I recognized, thorough my 11 years of training and experience as a law enforcement officer, the substance to be some sort of narcotic," the officer wrote in his report.

The officer tested the substance twice and both times it came up positive for meth, the report said.

It wasn't until the FDLE test that Rushing was cleared.

"Every other Wednesday, I stop at Krispy Kreme and get a doughnut there. And they found four little flakes of the icing," Rushing said.

Russell asked police how often false positive drug tests happen.

A spokesperson told us "there is no mechanism in place for easily tracking the number of, or results of, field drug testing."

Rushing has hired an attorney and plans to file a lawsuit.

Cox Media Group