Runway model arrested for stealing Pop-Tarts

A thin runway model has been arrested in New York for trying to steal boxes of Pop-Tarts, a cake and cake mix from a supermarket.

Mary Jean Conniff, was sentenced to one day of community for petit larceny in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday, the New York Post reports.

"I don't want to judge her, but maybe she needed it," one employee at the Harlem Pathmark was quoted as saying.

"Maybe she was hungry and had a sweet tooth."

Conniff was caught by a security guard stealing the sweet food items from a shelf and trying to hide them in her purse and pockets on May 5.

The 183cm-tall model appeared at a 2012 fashion show for Argentine designer Victor de Souza but she does not seem to have enjoyed much work since, the Post reports.

Conniff refused to speak to reporters after her sentence.

Her lawyer said the whole incident was a misunderstanding.

"She will go on to live a law-abiding life as she has always done," he was quoted as saying.