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Luke Gatti: Mac And Cheese Dude Arrested In Florida

By Robert Jonathan
Published on: 11:48 PST, Jul 2, 2016

Luke Gatti, the ex-University of Connecticut student who experienced a cafeteria “meltdown” over a craving for bacon jalapeño mac and cheese that led to his arrest in October 2015 and infamy on social media, has been arrested in Florida after allegedly scuffling with cops.

Gattti, 20, reportedly faces charges of battery on an officer and resisting arrest with violence in a late May incident that has just surfaced in the media.

The original cell phone video of the October 4 confrontation between the student apparently jonesing for mac and cheese and an even-tempered, patient food court manager in the crowded student union on the Storrs campus went viral.

With his mac and cheese demands unmet, the NSFW footage showed the student berating and cursing out the dining hall manager with several F-bombs, pushing him several times (before he was taken to the ground by another worker), and at the end of the encounter spitting in the manager’s face as a campus cop cuffed him and hustled him out of the venue.

“Gatti was originally charged with misdemeanor breach of peace and trespass,” in the UConn food court confrontation, NBC Connecticut reported.

About a week after the UConn incident, Gatti uploaded a two-and-a-half minute apology to YouTube about his mac and cheese rant. In the clip, he apologized to the cafeteria staff and particularly the manager, who Gatti admitted was just doing his job. Gatti also acknowledged that during the mac and cheese conflict, he was drunk, acting like an “a**hole,” and that he was ashamed of himself. The incident was for him a serious wake-up call to address some problems, he conceded.

Gatti even flew to Ecuador (where the restaurant manager now lives) to mend fences with the man.

In December, a Connecticut Superior Court judge granted his application for accelerated rehabilitation in the UConn incident, which is a special probationary diversion program for first-time offenders without a formal finding in the case. Provided he stayed out of trouble during the AR period, the case would be erased from the court record entirely. During the hearing, Gatti told the judge that he was “entirely ashamed” of his actions.

“The Connecticut probation is now in jeopardy and Gatti could again face the criminal charges related to the UConn incident,” the Hartford Courant explained about the Florida encounter.

In the recent incident, concerned staff at the Wellness Resource Center called the cops after Gatti returned from a Fort Lauderdale substance abuse rehab facility as required by court order, the Courant detailed.

“During a medical exam following his return to the Wellness Resource Center from the detox facility, Gatti was in pain and his vital signs were elevated, according to the police report. Doctors determined that he was going through withdrawal. Gatti asked for medication to ease the symptoms, the doctor refused, and Gatti became angry and left the facility, police said.”

When he returned a few hours later, cops reportedly tried to take him into protective custody for his own safety.

“Gatti resisted the officers, struck one in the hand, then struggled with another causing them both to fall backwards through a door, according to the report. Police then were able to handcuff him.”

Gatti also made statements to cops alluding to suicide and even reportedly asked one of the officers to shoot him with his service revolver, the Courant claimed.

He was apparently examined and cleared at Boca Raton Hospital and then booked at the Boca Raton Police Department.

The former UConn student posted $5,000 bail and was released from Palm Beach County Jail on May 31. He his due back in court on July 27.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrzFz2KEROI

Mac and cheese dude Luke Gatti was also arrested on two occasions while a University of Massachusetts student before transferring to UConn, according to MassLive.

[image via YouTube]

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