From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Feb. 7, 1974:

An offhand prank by a Kansas University freshman turned out to have tiresome consequences for the young man. Robert L. Patrick had been charged with petty theft after stealing uniform hats from two highway troopers who had stopped to eat at a Lawrence restaurant. The troopers had been able to track Patrick down using the address on the check he had written for his own meal. Douglas County Court Judge Mike Elwell and a spokesman from the county attorney’s office said they would dismiss the charges against Patrick if he would wash police or sheriff cars on two occasions. Three days after his arrest, Patrick washed two or three cars, but hadn’t turned up as scheduled two days later to finish his “sentence.” After the threat of a bench warrant, he showed up on another day and washed cars for several hours, bringing his total to 17 police and sheriff’s cars and one van. Elwell and Douglas Walker, assistant county attorney, then dismissed the charges against Patrick. “Be sure you say that they were police cars — not those of the county attorney or judge,” Walker specified in today’s news brief describing the incidents.