Stolen Shopping Cart Arrest

A Columbia man was arrested when a Sonora Police Department officer spotted him driving a stolen motorized shopping cart down Mono Way.

He was pulled over at around one o’clock this morning. The officer recognized the man, 77-year-old John Mathews, who has had previous run-ins with law enforcement. The PD says that Mathews claimed that Safeway had given him the cart, which is valued at $1,000.

Safeway was contacted, and store officials had no knowledge that the cart had been taken. It was returned to the store, and Mathews was booked into Tuolumne County Jail on a charge of felony possession of stolen property.