Dairy Queen Argument Leads Woman to Steal Donation Jar, Break Trash Can, Police Say

A Norristown woman is facing multiple charges after an argument about freezer-burned ice cream allegedly led to her stealing a donation jar and breaking a $500 trashcan.

Lower Providence Police responded to the Dairy Queen on Ridge Pike shortly after 4 p.m. on May 25, for a report of a disturbance. Upon arrival, the store manager informed police that a woman – identified as Mary Angela Cortese, 26, of Norristown – attempted to purchase ice cream with her credit card, but the card was declined, according to the police report. Cortese reportedly told a store employee that she was going home to retrieve money, and would return for her ice cream, police said. The employee then placed the ice cream in a refrigerator while awaiting Cortese's return.

Cortese reportedly returned to Dairy Queen 20 minutes later with money in hand, but she asked the store manager to prepare her a new ice cream since she didn't like her ice cream to be freezer burned, the report states. The store manager declined to make her a new one, at which time Cortese allegedly called him a "fatass" and stole a donation jar from the counter before walking away.

The store manager confronted Cortese about stealing the donation jar, at which time she came back and returned it, the report states. She then knocked over a $500 trashcan, causing it to break, before leaving the scene in her vehicle, police said.

A short time later, police encountered Cortese at the nearby Sunoco station, which she gave a similar account of the incident to police but denied stealing the donation jar, and said she bumped into the trash can by accident, the report states.

Cortese told police that she was upset because the employees at Diary Queen were laughing at her.

"I have never been treated so rudely in my lifetime," said Cortese, according to the report. "That man at Dairy Queen was laughing at me." 

She was then taken into custody on charges of theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, harassment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

Cortese was arraigned on $5,000 ROR bail, and was later released.

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