������Ƶ

UPDATED 11/07/11 10:47 a.m.

The pregnant Honolulu woman arrested with her husband for shoplifting two sandwiches at a downtown Safeway says she blames the store manager for allowing a mistake to escalate into an incident that sparked national attention.

Nicole Leszczynski, 28, said the manager had ample time to let her pay $5 for the two sandwiches she, her 33-year-old husband, Marcin, and their 2-year-old daughter, Zofia, ate while shopping at the Safeway on Beretania Street.

“At some point he could have made a decision to talk with us about the sandwiches,” she told Civil Beat Wednesday in a telephone interview. She said she and her husband offered to pay Safeway for the sandwiches after they forgot to ring up the wrappers at the checkout counter.

Instead, she said, the manager and security guards held the couple and their daughter in a break room for four hours before a state welfare worker took away the little girl and police took the parents to jail.

The Oct. 26 arrest was by Hawaii News Now on Oct. 27. It spread across the country, gaining mention from to .¹

Now the question is whether it will end in a lawsuit, or settlement.

“I’m not angry at the arresting officers or CPS,” she said. “I mean, those guys are just doing their jobs.”

A spokeswoman for Safeway declined to comment beyond saying the company’s regional president had called the family to apologize and that the store would not press charges. She referred Civil Beat to a .

Honolulu criminal defense attorney Myles Breiner, whose office represents the Leszczynskis, would not say whether the family plans to sue Safeway.

Asked whether she had plans to sue, Leszczynski said she was just happy Safeway won’t try to take her to court.

“Our biggest concern was getting these charges dropped,” she said.

Eric Seitz, a Honolulu defense attorney, said Safeway security did not have the right to hold the family at the store for four hours.

“They do not have authority to arrest,” he said. “They can call the police. If the police don’t immediately respond, then there’s nothing they can do about it.” It took two hours for police to show up after she was stopped by Safeway security, Leszczynski said.

Seitz said he has represented clients in eight to 10 similar cases in the past 20 years — including one case in which a security guard lost his job after refusing to make an arrest. All of those cases resulted in settlements, he said.

What Happened

The arrest wasn’t the welcome she and her husband were expecting when they moved back to Hawaii from California a couple of weeks ago. Leszczynski said she lived in Hawaii from 2005 to 2009 while stationed here with the Air Force. They now live in Makiki.

The couple and their daughter arrived at the grocery store early the evening of the 26th.

“We were just famished at that point. I was feeling kind of ill,” she said. Her baby is due Jan. 7.

They walked over to the Safeway deli, which offered two sandwiches for $5. They picked up the sandwiches and ate them while they shopped.

Leszczynski said it was something she was used to doing in commissaries on military bases.

“I’ve done it once or twice before,” she said. But each time, she said, she saved the sandwich wrapper and paid for it with her other groceries.

This time she paid $50 with a credit card for her groceries², but forgot to have the sandwich wrapper scanned.

“I’ve never forgotten to pay for something,” she said. “I would have gladly paid hundreds of dollars for that damn sandwich.”

As the family left the store, Safeway security asked them to step aside. Two security guards led them upstairs to a break room.

The guards took pictures of Leszczynski and her husband. They had the couple sign papers promising not to return to Safeway for a year.

After about 20 minutes, Leszczynski said, the store manager joined them. Leszczynski offered to pay the $5 she owed for the sandwiches, but the manager said it was against Safeway policy to accept the money, she said.

After the manager went back to his office adjoining the break room, she said, the security guards told her they were going to call the police.

Two police officers arrived about an hour and a half later, she said. The officers agreed not to arrest the couple until after someone came to pick up their daughter.

“I explained to her that we had this important appointment to go to and she was going to hang out with this really nice lady,” Leszczynski said.

It took two hours before Child Welfare Services arrived. After their daughter was taken away, she said she ran to the bathroom to throw up.

Then the police handcuffed the parents and put them in separate police cars. But before that, they did allow them to go to an ATM to get money for bail.

They ended up paying $50 each for bail and were released after spending an hour in jail.