Charles Doty Jr. pleads guilty to threatening Little Caesars employee with AK-47

A Tennessee man pleaded guilty to threatening Little Caesars employees with an AK-47 when his pizza order wasn’t “hot ‘n ready.”

Charles Doty Jr., 64, admitted that he pointed the high-powered rifle at the face of a staffer — who was working her first day at the chain location in Knoxville in November 2021 — because he felt his pizza order was taking too long.

He ordered a pepperoni pie but became impatient when he was told it’d take 10 minutes. He left the restaurant and returned with the AK-47 while demanding a free order of Little Ceasars’ Crazy Bread over the wait.

“He comes in, the gun is pointed … down a little bit,” the new employee, Kimberleigh Murrell, told WATE. “Then I look at it. My eyes drop to the gun and he literally pulls it up, points it at me … and says ‘Where is my pizza? I want my pizza now.’”

When another employee attempted to leave the restaurant, Doty allegedly asked him “where in the hell he thought he was going,” according to a police report.

“I never expected somebody to come in over a $6 pizza that you paid for with a gun,” Murrell said.

Another customer who had just received her pie handed it to Doty to diffuse the situation.

He left with that customer’s pizza before cops arrived in response to a staffer’s 911 call.

Another staffer at the pizzeria said he too was shocked since the wait wasn’t even long.

“It wasn’t even a 10-minute wait when he came in with the gun. If he had not come in with the gun and waited another two maybe three minutes, it would have already been boxed and in his hands,” Noah Beeler told the local station.

Doty pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated assault on Aug. 23, The Smoking Gun reported.

He will be sentenced on Sept. 29.