Woman Held in Jail for Weeks Over SpaghettiOs

When Ashley Gabrielle Huff was pulled over by a police officer in Gainesville, Ga., on July 2 for a tag light violation, the officer immediately became suspicious of her appearance and demeanor. After finding a spoon in her car with residue on it (and supposedly field-testing it), the officer was convinced it was methamphetamine and arrested Huff, 23, hauling her off to Hall County Jail. She was released at one point, then reincarcerated. Unable to pay her bail, she languished there until Sept. 18—when lab tests came back and proved it was SpaghettiOs sauce, not meth, on the spoon, the Gainesville Times reports.

A police report cited by the Times noted that Huff, 23, seemed "nervous" to the officer who made the traffic stop and that her body was covered in sores. After reportedly getting permission from Huff to search her car, the officer found a bag with a spoon inside, coated with a "clear, crystal-like substance"; he says he also did a field test that showed a "positive indication" for meth. Huff told the officer that it was just SpaghettiOs sauce, but he wasn't buying it. She explains to the Times that she ate straight out of the can and then tossed the can but "threw the spoon in my purse because I had borrowed it from a friend." Now Huff, who says she lost her Waffle House job and missed her kids' birthdays while incarcerated, says she's seeking legal counsel. The police say they were simply "acting in good faith," KRON4 reports. (SpaghettiOs had its own problems last Pearl Harbor Day.)