Wendy's Finger In Chli Case Summary
Crisis Management
In
Public Relations
(Wendy’s Finger-In-Chili Case)
Passed by:
Mary Grace M. Onte
Passed to:
Prof. Roberto Palevino
Chili Finger Incident
[pic]
Friday, May 6, 2005
On Thursday the 24th of March, 2005, Anna Ayala, a woman from Las Vegas, claimed to have found a human finger in her bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant located at 1405 Monterey Highway, just south of downtown San Jose, California, owned by Fresno-based Jern management. The finger, which probably belonged to a woman as it had a long and manicured fingernail, did not belong to any of the restaurant employees. The food supplies were seized by officials to be traced back to its manufacturers, while the restaurant was permitted to open again later with chili prepared from fresh ingredients. Anna Ayala claimed she bit down on a finger while eating Wendy's chili in San Jose, California. Police have since …show more content…
ruled Ayala's allegations a hoax and have arrested her. But the finger is legit. Wendy's offered up a $100,000 reward to find the finger's owner and a tip lead to an associate of Ayala's husband who lost his finger in an industrial accident.
The damage
Wendy's reported a sales drop at its Northern California locations. Employees have been laid off and work hours were reduced as a result of Ayala's claims and consumers steering clear of Wendy's.
The fast food chain offered a free frosty day at the San Jose location where the scam occurred and customers were out the door waiting in line. Wendy's then offered a nationwide free frosty day and the event just happened to coincide with the news that the finger's owner had been found.
Ayala was arrested for making false claims but Wendy's President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Mueller says Wendy's reputation has been damaged nationally. Stocks dropped and the chain reports first-quarter earnings fell because of the finger incident and inclement weather.
Aftermath
Wikinews reporter David Vasquez drove his car up to the drive-thru menu and found that chili was still on the menu, at a price of US$1.19 for a small serving. He also witnessed workers unloading supplies from a semi-trailer truck in the restaurant's parking lot, and carting them into the back door of the establishment.
Initially, county health officials said Ayala was fine and the finger had been cooked, which would have killed any bacteria in the finger. However, on March 27, officials admitted they were not so sure anymore. Tests were done on the finger to determine this. Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, Santa Clara County's health officer, said that even if the finger was still raw when Ayala bit into it, the risk was low that she would have become infected with anything. However, he advised that Ayala should undergo a series of precautionary follow-up tests.
Sales at Wendy's went down because of the incident. Wendy's International, Inc. (WEN) closed at US$39.43 on Thursday the 24th, and as the stock exchange was closed for the Good Friday holiday, traders did not weigh in the stock until the next Monday.
By Tuesday the 5th of April, officials had still not succeeded in tracking down the owner of the finger. The fingerprint on the detached digit has been run through an FBI database as well as the local criminal database in Santa Clara County, but no matches were found. According to Rich Reneau, who was leading the investigation at the time, the fingerprint was marginal, and the likelihood of finding a match was slim.
Wendy's stock did not go down significantly and was trading at US$39.37 that morning.
Investigation centers on Ayala
The next day, on Wednesday the 6th, Las Vegas police searched the home of Anna Ayala. About a dozen officers conducted the search at Ayala's home at Maryland Parkway and Serene Street at about 4 p.m. local time (23:00 UTC), according to witnesses at the scene. Ayala and other residents were handcuffed and brought out of the house. Ayala said that her teenage daughter, Genesis Reyes, had torn shoulder ligaments as a result of the search. The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a photo of Reyes wearing a sling in their Friday edition. In San Jose, police spokeswoman Gina Tepoorten confirmed to reporters that investigators had served the warrant in cooperation with Las Vegas police on Wednesday, but she refused to reveal specific details about the warrant. By that time, Wendy's was offering a US$50,000 reward for information leading to the source of the finger.
Research by the Associated Press uncovered Ayala's history of lawsuits. Ayala successfully won her suit for medical expenses against the national El Pollo Loco chicken-chain, a previous employer, after her daughter Genesis contracted salmonella poisoning, allegedly from eating at the restaurant. However, Ayala lost another suit against General Motors in 2000 claiming that a wheel fell off her car. She also started a sexual harassment suit against her former boss in 1998. A total of 13 lawsuits in California and Nevada had been filed. Ayala replied the focus should be on Wendy's, and not her record of law suits. Nick Muyo, a spokesman for the San Jose Police department, said not to expect new information in the case for at least a week.
Twists and turns
On Wednesday the 13th there was a potential new lead in the investigation. A spotted leopard had torn off part of a finger from an owner of exotic animals, Sandy Allman, in Pahrump, Nevada. The portion of Allman's torn off finger was approximately the same size – 1 1/2-inches long. Pahrump is approximately 45 miles away from Las Vegas. Carol Asvestas, who owns an exotic animal sanctuary, told the San Jose Mercury News she witnessed the leopard tear off the finger. She reported the incident to a hotline run by Wendy's offering the US$50,000 reward. Cindy Carroccio told the San Jose Mercury News that the finger was not reattached, and that the clinic "gave it back to her (Allman) in a little bag of ice." On the same day the lead was announced, Ayala decided to drop her lawsuit against Wendy's, due to emotional stress.
However, when Allman's prints were sent to San Jose police, they didn't match. Two days later, on Friday the 15th, Wendy's doubled the reward to US$100,000. The company revealed that employees had passed polygraph tests. Wendy's continues to claim that there is no evidence that the finger ever entered their supply chain, pointing to a lack of any accidents among the workers at their suppliers. Wendy's tip line had received reports from across the United States, from "folks who either have lost a finger, or know somebody who lost a finger," San Jose police Sgt. Nick Muyo told the Associated Press.
Ayala arrested
On Thursday the 21st of April, Anna Ayala was arrested at or near her home in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, in connection with the case, shortly after Wendy's finished its own internal investigation.
According to court documents, she has been charged with one count of attempted grand larceny related to the chili case, and one count of grand larceny in an unrelated real estate deal, and is being held without bail in Clark County, Nevada, pending extradition. A press conference by the San Jose Police and Wendy's was held on Friday, April 22, at 13:00 PDT. The charge related to the case states the finger could not have been prepared at Wendy's, where the chili is heated to 170 degrees for 3 hours. There is also an inconsistency in Ayala's account of finding the finger and claiming it caused her to vomit compared with police saying there was no vomit at the scene. The incident has caused Wendy's 2.5 million dollars worth of damages, which Ayala could be criminally responsible for. Until recently, the San Jose police had not accused Ayala of planting the finger
herself.
The unrelated charge stems from an incident, also in San Jose, when Ayala allegedly received an $11,000 down payment on a mobile home she did not own.
Ayala was incarcerated at the Clark County Detention Center, awaiting a fugitive review hearing on Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 7:30 a.m. local time. She was processed and given inmate ID 01964047. Her case number was 05F07229X. Ayala waived extradition at the hearing, and her attorney said they were ready to come to San Jose to defend against the charges.
Ayala transferred to San Jose
On Friday, May 6, 2005, Ayala was transported to San Jose, California. Ayala was booked into the main Santa Clara County jail, and is awaiting arraignment. Ayala will likely be arraigned on Monday or Tuesday at the Santa Clara County Superior Court, according to Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Boyd.
On September 9, 2005, Ayala pleaded guilty to conspiring to file a false claim and attempted grand theft, and was scheduled to be sentenced on November 2, 2005. She faced up to ten years in prison, and her husband faced up to 13 years behind bars.
Finger's owner identified
Until the middle of May, the owner of the finger still had not been found.
But on May 13, 2005, police announced that they had identified the finger tip as belonging to an associate of Ayala's husband. The associate had lost his finger tip in an industrial accident at an asphalt company in December, 2004. Police had received the information from an undisclosed caller to Wendy's hot-line.
Finger-In-Chili woman banned from Wendy’s
(March 11, 2010) -- Anna Ayala will not be dining at a Wendy's restaurant anytime soon. The woman who gained infamy in 2005 when she planted a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili is out of prison. One of the conditions of her probation is that she never set foot in the fast-food chain again.
Anna Ayala, shown in court in 2005, claimed she found a finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Police determined she planted the finger.
In her first interview since her release, Ayala admitted to CBS affiliate KPIX-TV that she had cooked the finger in a bowl of chili and later transferred it into a Wendy's container.
"I cooked it," she told KPIX.
Ayala said that, following a Wendy's recipe, she made the chili at her home in Las Vegas, froze it for several months, and eventually drove to a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose, Calif., where she pretended to find the finger in her meal."Wendy's had nothing to do with this," Ayala said.
Ayala was released from prison nearly a year ago after serving four years of a nine-year sentence. "I'm changed," Ayala, 44, told KPIX. "Prison changes a person."
She said she granted the interview so that she could publicly apologize and begin getting on with her life. "I deeply apologize," Ayala said. "I hurt a lot of people. I hurt my family, my children, due to my stupidity."
Ayala's initial claim that Wendy's was to blame for the finger in the chili set off a firestorm of negative publicity that the restaurant chain estimates cost it $21 million in lost sales, according to the San Jose Mercury News. An investigation launched by the San Jose Police Department revealed inconsistencies in Ayala's story, and the finger was ultimately traced to Brian Rossiter, a co-worker of Ayala's husband, Jaime Plascencia.Rossiter later testified in court that he lost the finger in a work accident and gave it to Ayala's husband to settle a $100 bet. On Jan. 18, 2006, both Plascencia and Ayala were found guilty of attempting to extort money from Wendy's.
"I think about it every day," Ayala told KPIX. "What was I thinking?"
Photos related to this incident:
|[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |
|The Wendy's location where the |Chili was still on the menu as |Workers unload fresh supplies |The Wendy's location on March|
|finger was discovered, shortly |the restaurant closed for the |after closing time on March 22 |27 |
|after closing time March 22 |evening on March 22 | | |
|[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |
|Ayala residence in Las Vegas, |Note on Ayala residence door, |Anna Ayala attracted nationwide |The fast food chain offered a|
|Nevada, shot on April 22, 2005 by|photographed on April 22, 2005 |attention after a chili meal she|free frosty day at the San |
|Wikinews contributor David |by David Vasquez |received from a Wendy's |Jose location where the scam |
|Vasquez | |franchise allegedly contained a |occurred and customers were |
| | |human finger. |out the door waiting in line.|
In
Public Relations
(Wendy’s Finger-In-Chili Case)
Passed by:
Mary Grace M. Onte
Passed to:
Prof. Roberto Palevino
Chili Finger Incident
[pic]
Friday, May 6, 2005
On Thursday the 24th of March, 2005, Anna Ayala, a woman from Las Vegas, claimed to have found a human finger in her bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant located at 1405 Monterey Highway, just south of downtown San Jose, California, owned by Fresno-based Jern management. The finger, which probably belonged to a woman as it had a long and manicured fingernail, did not belong to any of the restaurant employees. The food supplies were seized by officials to be traced back to its manufacturers, while the restaurant was permitted to open again later with chili prepared from fresh ingredients. Anna Ayala claimed she bit down on a finger while eating Wendy's chili in San Jose, California. Police have since …show more content…
ruled Ayala's allegations a hoax and have arrested her. But the finger is legit. Wendy's offered up a $100,000 reward to find the finger's owner and a tip lead to an associate of Ayala's husband who lost his finger in an industrial accident.
The damage
Wendy's reported a sales drop at its Northern California locations. Employees have been laid off and work hours were reduced as a result of Ayala's claims and consumers steering clear of Wendy's.
The fast food chain offered a free frosty day at the San Jose location where the scam occurred and customers were out the door waiting in line. Wendy's then offered a nationwide free frosty day and the event just happened to coincide with the news that the finger's owner had been found.
Ayala was arrested for making false claims but Wendy's President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Mueller says Wendy's reputation has been damaged nationally. Stocks dropped and the chain reports first-quarter earnings fell because of the finger incident and inclement weather.
Aftermath
Wikinews reporter David Vasquez drove his car up to the drive-thru menu and found that chili was still on the menu, at a price of US$1.19 for a small serving. He also witnessed workers unloading supplies from a semi-trailer truck in the restaurant's parking lot, and carting them into the back door of the establishment.
Initially, county health officials said Ayala was fine and the finger had been cooked, which would have killed any bacteria in the finger. However, on March 27, officials admitted they were not so sure anymore. Tests were done on the finger to determine this. Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, Santa Clara County's health officer, said that even if the finger was still raw when Ayala bit into it, the risk was low that she would have become infected with anything. However, he advised that Ayala should undergo a series of precautionary follow-up tests.
Sales at Wendy's went down because of the incident. Wendy's International, Inc. (WEN) closed at US$39.43 on Thursday the 24th, and as the stock exchange was closed for the Good Friday holiday, traders did not weigh in the stock until the next Monday.
By Tuesday the 5th of April, officials had still not succeeded in tracking down the owner of the finger. The fingerprint on the detached digit has been run through an FBI database as well as the local criminal database in Santa Clara County, but no matches were found. According to Rich Reneau, who was leading the investigation at the time, the fingerprint was marginal, and the likelihood of finding a match was slim.
Wendy's stock did not go down significantly and was trading at US$39.37 that morning.
Investigation centers on Ayala
The next day, on Wednesday the 6th, Las Vegas police searched the home of Anna Ayala. About a dozen officers conducted the search at Ayala's home at Maryland Parkway and Serene Street at about 4 p.m. local time (23:00 UTC), according to witnesses at the scene. Ayala and other residents were handcuffed and brought out of the house. Ayala said that her teenage daughter, Genesis Reyes, had torn shoulder ligaments as a result of the search. The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a photo of Reyes wearing a sling in their Friday edition. In San Jose, police spokeswoman Gina Tepoorten confirmed to reporters that investigators had served the warrant in cooperation with Las Vegas police on Wednesday, but she refused to reveal specific details about the warrant. By that time, Wendy's was offering a US$50,000 reward for information leading to the source of the finger.
Research by the Associated Press uncovered Ayala's history of lawsuits. Ayala successfully won her suit for medical expenses against the national El Pollo Loco chicken-chain, a previous employer, after her daughter Genesis contracted salmonella poisoning, allegedly from eating at the restaurant. However, Ayala lost another suit against General Motors in 2000 claiming that a wheel fell off her car. She also started a sexual harassment suit against her former boss in 1998. A total of 13 lawsuits in California and Nevada had been filed. Ayala replied the focus should be on Wendy's, and not her record of law suits. Nick Muyo, a spokesman for the San Jose Police department, said not to expect new information in the case for at least a week.
Twists and turns
On Wednesday the 13th there was a potential new lead in the investigation. A spotted leopard had torn off part of a finger from an owner of exotic animals, Sandy Allman, in Pahrump, Nevada. The portion of Allman's torn off finger was approximately the same size – 1 1/2-inches long. Pahrump is approximately 45 miles away from Las Vegas. Carol Asvestas, who owns an exotic animal sanctuary, told the San Jose Mercury News she witnessed the leopard tear off the finger. She reported the incident to a hotline run by Wendy's offering the US$50,000 reward. Cindy Carroccio told the San Jose Mercury News that the finger was not reattached, and that the clinic "gave it back to her (Allman) in a little bag of ice." On the same day the lead was announced, Ayala decided to drop her lawsuit against Wendy's, due to emotional stress.
However, when Allman's prints were sent to San Jose police, they didn't match. Two days later, on Friday the 15th, Wendy's doubled the reward to US$100,000. The company revealed that employees had passed polygraph tests. Wendy's continues to claim that there is no evidence that the finger ever entered their supply chain, pointing to a lack of any accidents among the workers at their suppliers. Wendy's tip line had received reports from across the United States, from "folks who either have lost a finger, or know somebody who lost a finger," San Jose police Sgt. Nick Muyo told the Associated Press.
Ayala arrested
On Thursday the 21st of April, Anna Ayala was arrested at or near her home in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, in connection with the case, shortly after Wendy's finished its own internal investigation.
According to court documents, she has been charged with one count of attempted grand larceny related to the chili case, and one count of grand larceny in an unrelated real estate deal, and is being held without bail in Clark County, Nevada, pending extradition. A press conference by the San Jose Police and Wendy's was held on Friday, April 22, at 13:00 PDT. The charge related to the case states the finger could not have been prepared at Wendy's, where the chili is heated to 170 degrees for 3 hours. There is also an inconsistency in Ayala's account of finding the finger and claiming it caused her to vomit compared with police saying there was no vomit at the scene. The incident has caused Wendy's 2.5 million dollars worth of damages, which Ayala could be criminally responsible for. Until recently, the San Jose police had not accused Ayala of planting the finger
herself.
The unrelated charge stems from an incident, also in San Jose, when Ayala allegedly received an $11,000 down payment on a mobile home she did not own.
Ayala was incarcerated at the Clark County Detention Center, awaiting a fugitive review hearing on Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 7:30 a.m. local time. She was processed and given inmate ID 01964047. Her case number was 05F07229X. Ayala waived extradition at the hearing, and her attorney said they were ready to come to San Jose to defend against the charges.
Ayala transferred to San Jose
On Friday, May 6, 2005, Ayala was transported to San Jose, California. Ayala was booked into the main Santa Clara County jail, and is awaiting arraignment. Ayala will likely be arraigned on Monday or Tuesday at the Santa Clara County Superior Court, according to Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Boyd.
On September 9, 2005, Ayala pleaded guilty to conspiring to file a false claim and attempted grand theft, and was scheduled to be sentenced on November 2, 2005. She faced up to ten years in prison, and her husband faced up to 13 years behind bars.
Finger's owner identified
Until the middle of May, the owner of the finger still had not been found.
But on May 13, 2005, police announced that they had identified the finger tip as belonging to an associate of Ayala's husband. The associate had lost his finger tip in an industrial accident at an asphalt company in December, 2004. Police had received the information from an undisclosed caller to Wendy's hot-line.
Finger-In-Chili woman banned from Wendy’s
(March 11, 2010) -- Anna Ayala will not be dining at a Wendy's restaurant anytime soon. The woman who gained infamy in 2005 when she planted a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili is out of prison. One of the conditions of her probation is that she never set foot in the fast-food chain again.
Anna Ayala, shown in court in 2005, claimed she found a finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Police determined she planted the finger.
In her first interview since her release, Ayala admitted to CBS affiliate KPIX-TV that she had cooked the finger in a bowl of chili and later transferred it into a Wendy's container.
"I cooked it," she told KPIX.
Ayala said that, following a Wendy's recipe, she made the chili at her home in Las Vegas, froze it for several months, and eventually drove to a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose, Calif., where she pretended to find the finger in her meal."Wendy's had nothing to do with this," Ayala said.
Ayala was released from prison nearly a year ago after serving four years of a nine-year sentence. "I'm changed," Ayala, 44, told KPIX. "Prison changes a person."
She said she granted the interview so that she could publicly apologize and begin getting on with her life. "I deeply apologize," Ayala said. "I hurt a lot of people. I hurt my family, my children, due to my stupidity."
Ayala's initial claim that Wendy's was to blame for the finger in the chili set off a firestorm of negative publicity that the restaurant chain estimates cost it $21 million in lost sales, according to the San Jose Mercury News. An investigation launched by the San Jose Police Department revealed inconsistencies in Ayala's story, and the finger was ultimately traced to Brian Rossiter, a co-worker of Ayala's husband, Jaime Plascencia.Rossiter later testified in court that he lost the finger in a work accident and gave it to Ayala's husband to settle a $100 bet. On Jan. 18, 2006, both Plascencia and Ayala were found guilty of attempting to extort money from Wendy's.
"I think about it every day," Ayala told KPIX. "What was I thinking?"
Photos related to this incident:
|[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |
|The Wendy's location where the |Chili was still on the menu as |Workers unload fresh supplies |The Wendy's location on March|
|finger was discovered, shortly |the restaurant closed for the |after closing time on March 22 |27 |
|after closing time March 22 |evening on March 22 | | |
|[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |[pic] |
|Ayala residence in Las Vegas, |Note on Ayala residence door, |Anna Ayala attracted nationwide |The fast food chain offered a|
|Nevada, shot on April 22, 2005 by|photographed on April 22, 2005 |attention after a chili meal she|free frosty day at the San |
|Wikinews contributor David |by David Vasquez |received from a Wendy's |Jose location where the scam |
|Vasquez | |franchise allegedly contained a |occurred and customers were |
| | |human finger. |out the door waiting in line.|