She's Fed the Homeless for 10 Years Without a Problem. Then Cops Showed Up a Week Ago to Slap Her With a Fine.

They say no good deed goes unpunished.

In this case, the city of San Antonio, Texas, is doing the punishing.

Joan Cheever runs the Chow Train, a mobile food truck that serves restaurant-grade food to the homeless.

On April 7, after 10 years of charitable operations, Cheever was slapped with a $2,000 fine by police, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

The issue wasn't that Cheever didn't have a food permit for her truck — she does — but rather the fact that other vehicles were used to transport some of the food, the Express-News reported.

Cheever's response: outrage.

"I am not a criminal," she wrote on Facebook. "My nonprofit is made up of GOOD SAMARITANS. It is bad enough and horrible enough to criminalize the poor. Now to call Good Samaritans criminals?"

She challenged police.

"Go ahead," she wrote. "Give me another citation and another and another. We will NOT be stopped. I am NOT enabling people on the street. I am just trying to give them a SAFE, hot AND CATERED meal until they can get their life together."

Read her whole Facebook message below:

Cheever is due in court June 23. She's arguing that she has a right to serve the homeless under the 1999 Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act because, to her, it's a religious matter, the Express-News reported.

Cheever's charitable work has been profiled in the past by Rachael Ray.

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