A woman has been sentenced in connection with a false police report involving a shopping cart at Lowe’s home improvement.
Tina Marie Nelson, 55, of Lady Lake, on Nov. 23 summoned Wildwood police to the Walmart at Sarasota Plaza in The Villages. She claimed she had loaded merchandise into the trunk of her vehicle when a vehicle with Tennessee license plates struck her shopping cart at the Lowe’s home improvement store at Trailwinds Village on County Road 466A in Wildwod. She said she was pinned between her vehicle and the shopping cart. Nelson claimed the vehicle fled the parking lot. She drove to Walmart and called law enforcement.
Nelson signed a written statement claiming, “He smooshed me between my cart and my car,” the officer wrote in the arrest report. The officer went to Lowe’s and asked to see surveillance footage. The footage showed the other vehicle did not hit Nelson’s shopping cart. In fact, Nelson pulled the shopping cart closer to her and was seen on surveillance “showing her dissatisfaction” to the other driver.
Earlier this month in Sumter County Court, Nelson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report. She has been placed on probation for six months and was ordered to perform 30 hours of community service.
