One second you’re going to get a delicious pizza and the next thing you know you’re being arrested for a crime that you didn’t commit. This is the nightmare scenario that one woman from upstate New York experienced.
We take you to Colonie, New York, right outside of Albany. That is where Jessica Donovan went to her local pizza shop to get yummy pizza. The woman alleges that the pizzeria owed her a free pizza, but they disagreed. Donovan said the employees berated her with vulgar language and she became angry after the pizzeria didn’t provide her with the free pizza.
Instead of calling the cops or demanding to talk to the manager, Jessica threw a handful of cookies at the employees and knocked over a trash can. The employees called the police over the outburst and officers showed up at Jessica’s home and questioned her about the disturbance.
Jessica said she would never frequent the pizza shop again and the issue was dead. However, while she was being questioned by police, officers discovered something new. In the law enforcement database, police found that Donovan had a Family Court warrant out for her arrest since November. Police arrested her on the spot and took her down to the local police station for booking.
Jessica argued that she wasn’t the one who had a warrant out for her arrest, but it was her ex-boyfriend John Gannon who was the one who failed to pay her child support. The police still arrested the 35-year-old mother of two. She would be locked up for three nights and was not allowed to post $500 bail because the Family Court warrant said bail was not an option.
“I broke down crying,” she told the Times Union. “I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat a single thing. I didn’t drink water. I think I had one serving of milk so that I didn’t pass out.”
Donovan was denied access to her anti-depression medicine for the three days in jail and was put on suicide watch. This happened over the weekend so there was no judge to hear Donovan’s case. To make matters even worse, Jessica missed Easter with her children.
Colonie police contacted the Albany County Sheriff’s Department for a full copy of the warrant to verify the information. It turns out that Jessica was telling the truth, the warrant listed Donovan as the petitioner and Gannon as the respondent for child support.
However, there was a clerical error in the court documents that said: “You are therefore commanded to arrest Jessica L. Donovan, and bring said person before this court to be dealt with according to law.”
“I just missed three days of my life, plus Easter with my children,” Donovan said. “Somebody messed up. I honestly want somebody to pay for that. That was wrong. You just don’t do that to people. They need an emergency judge for the weekend.”