Utah authorities accuse man of impersonating an officer and stealing a doughnut
Utah authorities have accused 47-year-old Daniel Mark Wright of impersonating an officer, possessing a stolen vehicle and stealing a doughnut.
A 7-Eleven employee approached a police officer Sunday, saying a suspicious person entered his store earlier that day wearing a sheriff’s deputy jacket, but he didn’t seem to be an officer, according to a probable cause statement from the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.
The store manager said the man, later identified as Wright, stole a doughnut from the store, the probable cause statement says.
After the employee gave police a description of the white truck the man left the store in, police found the vehicle parked in a nearby motel.
The truck was listed as stolen, the probable cause statement said. An officer looked at surveillance video from the 7-Eleven store, which the probable cause statement said also showed a woman in the vehicle. Both Wright and 40-year-old Christian Rose Olsen are facing charges of possessing a stolen vehicle, a second-degree felony.
The same footage from the store showed Wright wearing a Salt Lake County Sheriff’s deputy jacket with sheriff shoulder patches and an embroidered badge, the document says.
Police found the jacket hanging in Wright’s motel room nearby, the document says. He admitted he had been at the 7-Eleven store but did not answer questions about the stolen vehicle, according to the statement.
Olsen told police someone else had given them the vehicle several days earlier and she did not know it was stolen, according to a second probable cause statement.
But investigators allege Wright, Olsen and the person who gave them the vehicle are “involved in extensive criminal activity regarding vehicle burglary and vehicle theft among other things,” the statement says.
Wright told police he paid for the doughnut, but the store manager disputes the claim, the Wright probable cause document says, adding a receipt found at Wright’s room did not show a doughnut purchase.
“Due to prior theft convictions, this theft charge would be a 3rd degree Felony,” the document says.
Both Wright and Olsen are being held without bail at the Utah County Jail, and neither has an attorney listed.
Police have not recovered the doughnut.