Disney Accuses Employee of Dangerous Menu Changes

Fired employee listed foods as free of peanuts when they weren't, complaint says
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 30, 2024 6:20 PM CDT
Disney: Menus Falsified on Allergens Were Caught
Menu items are displayed at the Satu'li Canteen restaurant at Pandora-World of Avatar land attraction in Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., in 2017.   (AP Photo/John Raoux)

As a menu production manager at Walt Disney World, Michael Scheuer was responsible for creating and publishing menus for all of the company's restaurants. A federal criminal complaint says that after he was fired in June for misconduct, Scheuer hacked the company's menu-creating software to show that some items did not contain peanuts, NBC News reports. His changes "threatened public health and safety," the complaint says. Disney said it caught the problem before the menus went out to its restaurants.

For three months after he was fired, according to the complaint, Scheuer tapped into the software from a personal device. He's also accused of adding profanity to the menus and changing prices. QR codes reportedly were added to send people to a website calling for a boycott of businesses tied to Israel, per CNN. Scheuer has denied the accusations and said Disney was "attempting to frame him" over concerns about the way his firing was handled, says the complaint, which was filed in federal court in Florida. "The allegations acknowledge that no one was injured or harmed," an attorney for Scheuer said. (More hacking stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X