LAKE ELSINORE – Wolfee Donuts owner Joe Marin did not “decline” to pursue charges against pop star Ariana Grande over an incident at his shop earlier this month – he says police could not find a crime with which to charge her.
Marin tells Breitbart News that, contrary to police reports, he wants criminal charges filed against Grande over a July 4 incident in his shop in which the pop singer was caught on tape licking several doughnuts she had not purchased before remarking “I hate Americans. I hate America.”
“What happened was, I was reading [news on] the Internet, and it kept saying, ‘Joe decided this,'” Marin said. “I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I didn’t talk to anyone.’ The last time I spoke to the police officer, he said ‘I’ll let you know what we find.’ And then I start reading, and I call him and say ‘I heard I didn’t press any charges.’
Marin said he spoke with a police officer again on Tuesday.
“He told me, ‘Yeah, we can’t do anything, we can’t find anything [to charge her with] under California law,” Marin said.
But in a radio interview with Toronto station KISS 92.5 Tuesday morning, Marin contended that Grande “should be pressed with charges,” and said he didn’t know where the report stating he had declined to pursue charges had originated. He told the station that if the incident had been perpetrated by a “regular customer, [the police] would do something about it.”
It is unclear why the police could not find a crime to charge Grande with. When asked whether Marin had indeed pressed for charges to be filed against the pop star, Riverside County Deputy Sheriff Mike Vasquez referred Breitbart News to the department’s original statement saying that Marin had declined to press charges.
Marin, a legal immigrant who came to the United States 30 years ago, said he became even more angry after being told his shop had sold out of doughnuts on the night that Grande visited, because he knew that someone had purchased the licked doughnuts.
“The first thing I thought was, ‘Oh my god, somebody bought them,” the shop owner said. He said it was impossible to determine who had purchased the doughnuts because they had been placed throughout the display case after having been removed from their original tray.
Marin added that he “didn’t buy” Grande’s public apologies for the incident, saying that as a 22-year-old, she “should have known better.”
Still, Marin isn’t too bent out of shape over the incident. He tells Breitbart News he sold an astonishing 10,000 doughnuts per day over the weekend, when the average for a regular doughnut shop is about 500 sold per day.
“I had to call all the gas stations and tell them we couldn’t deliver, we just don’t have the doughnuts,” Marin said.
On Wednesday, minor league baseball team the Lake Elsinore Storm will hold an event to support Wolfee Donuts. The first 1,000 guests through the turnstiles at the stadium will receive a free doughnut with red, white and blue sprinkles.
As for Grande’s “I hate America” comment, Marin said that one of the best things he’s ever done is become an American citizen.
“When they give you the test [to become a citizen], they want to know what you know,” he said. “They asked, ‘Why do you want to become an American citizen?’ I said, “Because I’m proud of it. I want to become an American citizen. I want to do the right thing.”
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