Nissan Leaf Driver Goes to Jail for 'Stealing' 5 Cents Worth of Electricity

Nissan Leaf driver Kaveh Kamooneh, of Dekalb, GA, went to watch his son play tennis at school last month and plugged his EV into an outlet on the outside of the school. A police officer saw him, but didn't arrest him on the spot. Instead, the officer filed a police report and troopers went to Kamooneh's house 11 days later, arresting him and putting him in the slammer for 15 hours. The total value of Kamooneh's 20-minute refueling? Five cents, but the local Chamblee police Sergeant Ernesto Ford said the arrest was absolutely the right thing to do, telling local TV news station 11 Alive that, "he broke the law. He stole something that wasn't his." In his defense, Kamooneh said that he was at the school on a Saturday and there was no one to ask for permission to plug in his car. We've embedded two videos from 11 Alive below.

In 11 Alive's interview with Kamooneh we can see he has a good attitude about the whole incident, laughing at times. But 'free' public charging like this is an interesting question. It may not be legal, but is it really wrong? No one seems to have problems with people plugging their gadgets, so why is it wrong to plug in a car? We'd love to hear if anyone has had a similar experience in the comments. And it's good to see that, while it's not a scientific poll, at least 11 Alive readers are voting 93 percent to seven percent that the arrest was overkill.