A former Disney World Resort employee has pleaded guilty to hacking into one of the company’s computer systems and removing life-saving allergy information from restaurant menus.
Michael Scheuer was fired on June 13, 2024 for his alleged misconduct. He worked as a menu production manager, and his termination was considered “contentious and…not considered to be amicable,” according to a federal court complaint.
Scheuer has pleaded guilty to knowingly transmitting a program, information, code, and command and intentionally causing damage without authorization to a protected computer and aggravated identity theft, according to a Jan. 10 court plea agreement.
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In a statement to Fox News Digital, Scheuer’s attorney, David Haas, said his client “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,” he added. “No one was ever at risk of injury and he is deeply remorseful for what happened.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Disney.
Federal prosecutors said Scheuer, who they called a “threat actor,” was responsible for the creation and distribution of all restaurant menus for the company, including the digital menus. None of the changes made it on to the printed or digital versions of the menus, but they did result in $150,000 in damages, the company said, according to a complaint.
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“Namely, the threat actor manipulated the allergen information on menus by adding information to some allergen notifications that indicated certain menu items were safe for individuals with peanut allergies, when in fact they could be deadly to those with peanut allergies,” the complaint states.
The allergen alterations focused on peanut, tree nut, shellfish and milk allergens, prosecutors said.
“More specifically, the threat actor added notations to menu items indicating they were safe for people with specific allergies, which has potentially fatal consequences depending on the severity of the customers’ allergies,” prosecutors said. “It is believed these menus were identified and isolated by Company A prior to being shipped out to restaurants and were not distributed further.”
In addition, Scheuer also added profanity and changed the pricing of some items on the menus, Fox Orlando reported. He also allegedly sent multiple log-in requests, which prevented more than a dozen employees from being able to access their accounts and systems.
He also changed fonts and caused some pages to be blank. In particular, Scheuer made changes to information about wines to replace geographic regions with the locations of “recent mass shootings,” and embedded “a swastika” on menus, the filing says.
When questioned by investigators, he said he was being framed to cover up the conditions under which he was terminated, the complaint said.
He faces up to 10 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.
