Co-owner of Pandora’s Pies, The Fat Frogg Arrested
Peter Ustach, 29 of Burlington, N.C.
UPDATED: Aug. 4, 2016
The Alamance County District Attorney dismissed a breaking and entering charge against the co-owner of Pandora’s Pies and The Fat Frogg Bar and Grill.
Peter Ustach, 29, was charged in October, but the case was thrown out soon after. Ustach never set foot in a courtroom. Ustach said the charges were incorrect, and no one wished to pursue charges.
Peter J. Ustach, 29 of Burlington, N.C. was arrested and charged with misdemeanor attempted breaking or entering a building on Sunday, October 18.
Ustach is part owner of Pandoras Pies and The Fat Frogg Bar and Grill, both located in Elon.
The reporting victim, William Stout of Thames Ct. called Elon Police around 9 p.m. Sunday. Stout said a white male wearing light colored shorts and a dark colored shirt with “Elon” written on the front of the shirt had attempted to open the front door of his residence.
Stout said he saw Ustach run into the woods behind his house.
When Elon Police found Ustach, they said he had red glassy eyes and a moderate odor of alcohol on his breath. Elon Police said he was noticeably impaired.
According to the police report, Ustach explained to Elon Police that he was trying to walk home but took a wrong turn. He stated that he knew he went to the wrong house as he was trying to find his friend’s house on Orange Dr.
During transport to Alamance County jail, Ustach verbally vented his frustration about the incident, and how it could have been handled differently, according to the police report.
Elon Town Police, Elon University Police and the Burlington Police K-9 Unit all responded to this incident.
Ustach will appear in court on November 24.
This frat boy never grew up and will soon be full owner of Pandora’s Pies. Despite Trevor’s pathetic ad hominem attacks, conjecture and biases against law enforcement, this story needed to be told.
He tried to flee. This “prominent local businessman” was shitfaced and magically sobered up when arrested to plead for the benefit of the doubt like most of his ilk do.
Hopefully, this is an exception to the rule. And I do agree that Elon News needs to do more than “retweet” new stories.
I will preface this comment by saying that I am friends with Peter. He is a truly an all-time guy whose honesty and work ethic is matched by very few people in this world.
As a prominent Elon grad and local businessman maybe this story does deserve attention, or at least deserves not to be ignored, but I would HOPE that the fine journalism students at Elon University, my alma mater, would reach out to Peter and the gentleman who reported the “break in” in order to paint a more complete version of the story. Even talking to one of these parties would be better than regurgitating a sloppy police report written by a cop who more than likely has no college education and violates the constitution on a daily basis. Which is what the Pendulum appears to have done in this instance.
I would imagine the real story here is far less malicious than the charges and the headline of this article would suggest. Has anyone ever made a mistake like this when they were wasted? I personally have very close friends who regularly mistake living rooms or futons for bathrooms in the middle of the night.
While I understand young journalists make mistakes, and appreciate that those mistakes many times serve as learning opportunities, I am quite frankly disgusted with the writer of this article and the editor who gave a green light for it to be published.
It does appear that Gary - a senior and the author of this article - worked for Governor Christie’s communications team which would explain the apparent motive to produce dialogue that relies on superficial content with no factual or contextual basis. Gary, this is not an American political campaign where you can blindly spout off about subjects and people just to get attention, this is a school newspaper that should at least be striving for integrity in their news reporting.
Gary, perhaps you should drop out of school and sign on as a comm. volunteer for the Trump or Clinton campaign. I think either of those camps could find a place for someone like you who has the appropriate acumen to disregard facts, context, and moral standards in order to gain popularity.
To the editor of the Pendulum, shame on you. I truly hope this becomes a learning opportunity for you and your staff on how to appropriately retract an article that was clearly published in haste with no regard for context or accuracy.
Trevor Class of 2011
I said the same thing on the Pendulum page. ELN has an obligation to report the news that keeps people safe and informed. This report does none of that. A valued member of Elon community arrived at the wrong home, apologized for turning the door knob, and left. At no point in the police report does it indicate Peter was dangerous or posing a threat to anyone’s safety. He made a mistake that hurt absolutely no one and apologized. ELN then publishes an article damaging his personal reputation and his business. I had higher expectations of the Pendulum than to do this to someone for a few dozen more page views. This isn’t the NY Daily News. It is your job at a college paper to learn and execute journalism and this is truly a disheartening moment for ethical form of it. I hope this moment becomes a learning moment and comes up in classes, because Elon is better than this. It’s a damn shame Peter has to pay for your first lesson of ethics with the pen.
This is a total non story. Not to mention the fact you reported it 3 days after it happened. Scouring jail websites or writing stories after you heard it through the grapevine is NOT true journalism.
This is a prominent businessman and friend of the community, does the charge suck? Yes. But it most definitely warrants coverage. News media anywhere shouldn’t give a pass to anyone even “one of their own”
Great job on this story guys. It’s good that you mentioned him fleeing the scene and voicing his frustration in the cruiser, as well as including a paraphrased version of Ustach’s testimony.
I read The Pendulum’s article first, and I’ll say that it’s lacking in the type of content that kept your coverage consistent and balanced.
Keep up the good work.
Chris
Yellow journalism at its finest. Way to kick one of your own in the slats.
More GREAT journalism by Elon Local News. Y’all must be sooooo proud of yourselves.