Yogurt shop trouble leads to arrest

One man really stirred things up around Corona del Mar on Tuesday evening, allegedly stealing from a number of people along East Coast Highway including a 5-year-old girl, police said.

Michael James McCartney, 20, a North Hollywood transient entered the Golden Spoon frozen yogurt shop in the 2400 block of East Coast Highway at around 5:30 p.m. and got in line to buy some yogurt, store manager Barbara O’byrne said Wednesday by phone.

McCartney, dressed in a white hooded sweatshirt and what appeared to be pajama pants, ordered a quart of Cake Batter flavored yogurt, O’byrne said. Shoppers and employees said he was acting strangely.

“He looked dirty, but I didn’t think nothing of it. A customer is a customer,” O’byrne said, adding that he didn’t appear to be suspicious — at first.

O’byrne set the quart of yogurt behind the register as another woman in front of McCartney was paying for her order. As the woman pulled out cash to pay, McCartney allegedly tried to grab the money from her hands, O’byrne said.

The startled woman asked him, “What are you doing?” McCartney said he was just reaching for a spoon, and then went outside to have a cigarette, O’byrne said.

According to Tricia Rodewald, another store patron who was there with her daughter, Katie Rodewald, McCartney reentered the store and tried to order a second, smaller cup of yogurt.

“I didn’t even make it for him at that time because I wanted him to pay for the first one,” O’byrne said.

Rodewald and her daughter got up to leave the store, but McCartney blocked the exit. As they tried to pass him, McCartney allegedly snatched the cone from the 5-year-old’s hands and ran out the door, Rodewald said.

“I told the girl behind the counter to call the police,” she said. “If he’s doing this, he’s probably going to do other things somewhere else.”

Rodewald received a call from police around 9:30 p.m. The officer told her that they had arrested someone by Bandera Restaurant on East Coast Highway. An unmarked police car picked her up at her home and drove her to the restaurant, she said.

Police shined a light in McCartney’s eyes so he couldn’t see her in the car, Rodewald said.

“I ran it back in my head; did that just happen?” Rodewald said. “He could’ve taken Katie.”

She identified McCartney as the same man who stole the frozen yogurt from Katie.

Apparently, after he left the store, McCartney entered a nearby home and allegedly stole two purses from guests attending a party there, Newport Beach Police Sgt. Evan Sailor said.

A party guest saw McCartney leave and chased him out the door and down the street. The man lost McCartney as he ran across East Coast Highway, police said.

He allegedly dropped both purses along the way, and everything inside was recovered, Sailor said.

Officers patrolling the area spotted McCartney, fitting descriptions from the earlier incidents, around 8 p.m. near Bandera with a body board under his arm. McCartney had not yet been charged but was in custody late Wednesday, Sailor said.