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All charges against the US college softball coach and Olympian from Blenheim have been dismissed, leaving her with no criminal record but tarnishing her career.
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All charges against the US college softball coach and Olympian from Blenheim have been dismissed, leaving her with no criminal record but tarnishing her career.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Megan Pettypiece, 48. “Obviously I’m happy the charges were dropped. What’s sad is the damage it’s done to my career. It’s changed my whole life.”
Pettypeace was charged in Porter County, Indiana, with theft, possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance after the incident at a Walmart self-checkout counter on March 28.
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She resigned a few days later as head coach of the NCAA Division I softball team at Valparaiso University in Indiana.
The arrest was widely reported across the state, in nearby Chicago, Illinois, her hometown of southeastern Chatham, and in southwestern Ontario.
All charges were dismissed on Sept. 19, according to the Indiana Department of Justice.
“It’s been five months. It’s been a nightmare. I lost my career, I lost my job, I lost the life I’d built and it’s been really hard,” Pettypiece said from her Ohio home.
She was arrested after a Walmart security guard noticed that $67 worth of items, including ham and asparagus, had not been scanned at the self-checkout, according to a Chicago Tribune story from the time.
She also paid $176 worth of other items, according to news reports.
After her arrest, Pettypeace was found to have three disposable e-cigarettes in her purse, as well as two unopened blister packs of the anti-nausea medication Zofran, according to reports.
“It’s just ridiculous,” Pettypeace said.
Pettypiece said he was unaware that the scanner had failed to read the items.
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The e-cigarettes are not nicotine or THC-based, she said.
The pills were prescription and belonged to an assistant coach who had asked her to put them in her purse as she was leaving for a softball game a few days earlier, but the coach didn’t want to take her purse to the game, Pettypeace said.
“We both forgot about them,” she said.
The Valparaiso Beacons softball team announced her resignation on April 1, ending a career trajectory that began with an All-American career and championships at California University of Pennsylvania.
Pettypeace also played for Canada in softball at the 2000 Sydney Games and was an alternate on the 2004 Olympic team.
Her coaching career began at her alma mater, stints at Michigan and Ohio State before taking the head coaching position at Valparaiso.
“The softball community is such a tight-knit group, so (the news) spread really fast. You really see who really believes in you, trusts you and is really going to be a friend to you,” Pettypeace said.
The trial has been postponed once and was scheduled for a hearing later this month, but last week, she said, her lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case, attaching her account of what happened, evidence of her assistant’s prescriptions and a character reference letter.
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Pettypiece said after reading the application, the DA dismissed the charges.
During her time coaching at Valparaiso, her family still lived in Ohio and she lived in Indiana, so “it was a ray of hope to be able to come back home,” Pettypeace said.
“It’s good to have my whole family back. They’ve all made sacrifices so I can continue my coaching career.”
But there has been “irreparable damage” to careers, she said, and questioned whether reports about dismissed charges have the same impact as stories written at the time the charges were filed.
“The hard part is how to get people to know that I’m innocent and this was caused by something so stupid,” Pettypiece said.
With the charges dropped, she can return to work as a teacher, but she is considering pursuing a career as a softball umpire at the college level, not as a coach, Pettypiece said.
“I don’t know what the future holds. I’m just going to stay home and focus on my kids and see what direction I want to take.”
rrichmond@postmedia.com
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