Giving kids free candy can get you arrested.

That is, if you’re doing it a full week before Halloween and you’re on probation.

That’s reportedly what landed 38-year-old Matthew David Ward in handcuffs the afternoon of October 23. Around 3:30 p.m. that Wednesday, a Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy spotted Ward handing out full-size candy bars from a bag strapped to his bike to a pair of 11-year-olds in a blue-collar Rancho Cordova suburb.

According to department logs, the deputy went over the make sure the children were safe. After learning Ward was on searchable probation, following guilty pleas in May to misdemeanor counts of battery and theft, the deputy went through Ward’s backpack.

Inside the deputy discovered a small cardboard box containing two small baggies of what looked to be crystal meth. Ward also had a small amount of a white powdery substance inside a torn piece of plastic inside his wallet, which the deputy found after transporting Ward to a sheriff’s station to fill out paperwork.

The drug possession charge against Ward, however, was dismissed on Tuesday, according to Sacramento Superior Court records. He was released from jail the following day, just in time to hand out big-ass candy bars for Halloween.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Lisa R. Bowman indicated the candy hadn’t been trifled with, but stopped short of saying it was uncontaminated.

“There was no indication of drugs in the candy,” she told SN&R.

She added that the bars were “discarded” after Ward’s arrest. Sorry kids.