A free apple resulted in a $500 fine reportedly assessed to a suburban Denver woman recently who received the fruit on her Delta Air Lines flight from Paris back to the United States, KDVR-TV reported.
Crystal Tadlock told the television station last week that toward the end her trip back into the U.S. flight attendants passed out apples in plastic bags. Tadlock, who lives in Arvada, Colorado, said she was not hungry at the time and placed the apple in her bag to eat on the second leg of her flight back to Denver, per KDVR-TV.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents, though, found the apple during a random search when her flight landed in Minneapolis before moving on to Denver, reported BBC News. Tadlock told the agent she received the apple on the flight and asked whether she should throw it out or eat it.
The agent answered by handing her a $500 fine, the BBC News reported.
"(The agent) had asked me if my trip to France was expensive and I said, 'Yeah,'" Tadlock told KDVR-TV. "I didn’t really get why he was asking that question, and then he said 'It’s about to get a lot more expensive after I charge you $500.'"
Tadlock told the television station that she plans to fight the fine in court, saying that she was upset that an innocent mistake could lead to such a large fine and the loss of her Global Entry Status.
She also blamed Delta, saying that the airline shouldn't have passed out the apples or at least should have told passengers not to take the food off the jet, KDVR-TV said.
"It's really unfortunate someone has to go through that and be treated like a criminal over a piece of fruit," Tadlock told the television station.
"We encourage our customers to follow U.S. Customs and Border Protection protocols," a Delta spokesman said, but did not speak specifically about the case, KDVR-TV wrote.
U.S. Customs told USA Today that it has a strict policy about "all agricultural items" being declared and that penalties can run up to $1,000. The agency told USA Today the strict adherence to that policy is needed to guard against plant pests and foreign animal diseases entering the country.
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