I sure hope Forest Whitaker does not need a New York Shoplifting class. He has not had any bad publicity surrounding him until a recent incident in a New York deli.

It turns out that Oscar winner Forest Whitaker was wrongly accused of shoplifting and subjected to a humiliating pat down at a deli back in February. As reported in gawker.com.

In this case, no cops were called—Whitaker was publicly frisked by a Milano Deli employee, in what seems to be an instance of blatant discrimination.

One deli patron who was present for the incident with Whitaker and is a regular at the deli, claims to have witnessed previous negative treatment of black customers by the store's employees, as well having heard staff spout "racist crap."

It is interesting how this became such a big story. I mean who is publicizing this.

Classy as always, Whitaker (who came into the store to buy a yogurt—any forensic scientist worth his weight in old-timey fingerprint powder knows that yogurt and crime do not mix) agreed to the employee's request not to involve the authorities out of fear of losing his job.

The Oscar-winning actor, in town to film "Black Nativity," was about to leave when one of the workers allegedly saw him take an item from a shelf.

The worker allegedly stopped Whitaker and gave him a pat-down in the store.

No stolen items were found and the employee apologized profusely for his mistake. He even offered Whitaker free food as part of his apology.

One interesting side not is that the store employees have denied the incident occurred. Hmm, I don’t think Whitaker needs a stop theft class.