A former Disney employee who was fired for misconduct has admitted to hacking into the company’s menu creation software to alter key details, including food allergy information that could have been dangerous to customers at the resort’s restaurants.
A complaint brought by the Justice Department last year claimed that a man named Michael Scheuer had committed a variety of computer crimes after being fired from the company that he worked at. The impacted company wasn’t named in the complaint, though additional reporting revealed the company to be Disney. Now, it’s been reported that Scheuer, who formerly worked as the company’s “Menu Production Manager,” has reportedly admitted to the computer crimes in question as part of a plea deal.
Court Watch reports that Scheuer has agreed to pay Disney restitution as well as a government fine. Scheuer’s lawyer, David Haas, reportedly said: “Mr. Scheuer is prepared to accept responsibility for his conduct. Unfortunately, he has mental health issues that were exacerbated when Disney fired him upon his return from paternity leave.” Haas added: “No one was ever at risk of injury and he is deeply remorseful for what happened.”
When reached for comment by Gizmodo, Haas confirmed Court Watch’s report, while noting that no plea date had yet been set. The plea date is the date at which a defendant actually enters a guilty plea, after a plea deal has been worked out between the defense attorney and prosecutor.
Scheuer’s attacks on the company allegedly took place over a period of three months. During that time he “manipulated the menus of restaurants owned and operated by” Disney, the original complaint states. The more “benign” of these attacks involved defacing various menus by changing their font to Wingdings, thus rendering them incoherent. In other cases, Scheuer is said to have interjected profanity into the menus. The most serious crimes, however, involved Scheuer’s efforts to manipulate allergen information on the menus. Scheuer is also accused of conducting denial-of-service attacks on the work accounts of several of his former colleagues.
Court Watch reveals additional details about what Scheuer apparently did, based on newly revealed court documents:
Scheuer changed the wine regions of alcoholic drinks to locations that had mass shootings. Court documents say he, in one instance, added a swastika to a menu. Scheuer also admitted to leaking the link and login he used to change the menus onto the dark web.
Thankfully, none of the restaurant menus that Scheuer manipulated were ever distributed to venues.
Disney was actually hit with an unrelated “wrongful death” lawsuit last year after a woman died while dining at a restaurant operated on one of Disney’s Florida properties. The woman had an allergy to nuts and dairy and she and her husband had been incorrectly told by their waiter that the meal she had ordered could be made without those ingredients. The case rose to prominence after Disney attempted to get the case thrown out based on a forced arbitration clause in the couple’s Disney+ trial subscription. After much outcry, Disney announced it would desist from its gross legal strategy and let the lawsuit go to trial.
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