Judge Sentences Woman to Work in Fast-Food Restaurant

A woman who threw a bowl of hot food in a Chipotle worker's face is going to get a taste of life on the other side of the counter. Rosemary Hayne, 39, was originally sentenced to six months in jail for the assault at the Parma, Ohio, restaurant, with 90 days suspended, but the judge offered to cut her jail time by two months if she spent that time working at a fast-food restaurant at least 20 hours a week, WJW reports. The Washington Post reports she accepted the offer. Hayne was found guilty of assault on Nov. 28 over the September incident, which a customer captured on video that went viral. She was seen screaming at workers including restaurant manager Emily Russell before she threw a chicken burrito bowl in Russell's face.

Police said Hayne was easy to track down after the assault because she had placed the order online. "You didn't get your burrito bowl the way you like it and this is how you respond?" Judge Timothy Gilligan told Hayne during sentencing. "This is not real housewives of Parma. This behavior is not acceptable." Hayne told the court there was no excuse for her behavior, though she added that the food had looked "disgusting" compared to her order from a week earlier. "I bet you won't be happy with the food you are going to get in the jail," the judge told her. Gilligan said he thought, "Why should the city taxpayers pay for her and feed her for 90 days in the jail if I can teach her a sense of empathy?"

Russell, 26, tells the Post that she was protecting a 17-year-old worker who was being yelled at—and she remade Hayne's order twice. After the assault, "I had to work with food in my face and hair for the next four hours after it happened because no one was sent to relieve me," she says. Russell says that after experiencing anxiety at work and feeling unsupported by Chipotle, she quit a month later and now has a new job at a Raising Cane's restaurant. She tells the Post that she's happy with the sentence and feels Hayne "got exactly what she deserved." (More fast food stories.)