A woman from New Mexico allegedly stole from a fast food restaurant after telling the server, ‘this one’s on God’.
The suspect is believed to have rode her bicycle to a Sonic Drive-In in Las Cruces on Monday (July 22) before ordering some food and then refusing to pay when asked by staff.
After being told ‘that’s not how this works’, with the server attempting to keep the food from her, the woman allegedly threatened him and came towards him to take the meal.
Court records obtained by the Las Cruces Sun-News newspaper state the server handed over the meal the woman had ordered in fear of getting harmed, before running back into the restaurant.
The server then called the police, who found the woman – Delila Hernandez, 30 – sat in a park eating the meal she’d allegedly stolen.
According to the court documents, Hernandez told police officers she knew what she had done was wrong, even hesitating to eat the meal because of this reason. However, she said she ultimately decided to eat it because she was ‘starving’.
The 30-year-old was arrested and charged with a felony robbery. New Mexico law defines robbery as the ‘theft of anything of value from a person – or the removal of control of an item of value – by use of threats, violence, or force’.
Because of this, you do not have to harm a person physically to be convicted of robbery; if you steal something with the threat of force or threat of violence, this is enough to constitute a robbery charge.
Robbery is a felony in the state, which sees the crime as a violent act against a victim, and so it will ultimately carry a harsher penalty than burglary – which can be committed armed or unarmed and ‘involves the unlawful entering of someone’s home’.
However, the charge against Hernandez may yet be reduced, with Roxanne Garcia-McElmell – the public information officer for the Third District District Attorney’s Office – saying the woman will most likely end up being charged with a petty misdemeanor of under $250.
As such, the 30-year-old will most likely be made to pay back the restaurant and will possibly be fined a small amount. Alternatively, the charges could be dropped altogether.
It is not known if Hernandez has an attorney.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).