A woman who fraudulently claimed she found a human finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili in a scheme to extort money from the fast food chain could spend up to a decade in prison after pleading guilty to all charges.
Both Anna Ayala, 39, and her husband, Jaime Placencia, 43, pleaded guilty in Santa Clara County Superior Court to felony charges of conspiracy to file a false claim and attempted grand theft from Wendy's International, which claimed it lost US$2.5 million in sales because of bad publicity.
Wendy's president and chief executive officer Tom Mueller said he hoped the guilty pleas would "send a strong message and serve as a deterrent to others who may contemplate a fraudulent crime against the restaurant industry."
Ayala claimed to have found the fingertip on March 22 while eating chili with her family at a Wendy's in San Jose. Authorities said they believed it was a hoax, but the story of the tasteless finger food quickly circled the globe and became fodder for late-night comedy.
A search for the finger's owner eventually led to one of Placencia's co-workers, who lost it in an industrial accident in Las Vegas, police said.
Ayala was arrested in April in her Nevada home and accused of trying to shake down Wendy's by filing a claim against the restaurant chain. Investigators discovered that she had filed numerous legal claims against businesses in her name or for her children.
Wendy's said no employees at the San Jose restaurant were missing fingers, and no suppliers of chili ingredients had reported any finger injuries.
The couple are scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 2.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
Pakistani police yesterday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her TikTok account. In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces. “The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said. Investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor,” the police report said. The man was subsequently arrested. The girl’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” said police in
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
RSS