A Disney employee pled guilty to one sick crime that left everyone on edge

Jan 21, 2025

The problems keep piling up for Disney with no end in sight. 

Another public relations disaster has landed on the CEO’s desk. 

And a Disney employee pled guilty to one sick crime that left everyone on edge. 

Former Disney employee pleads guilty to removing allergy info from menus 

A former employee at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida pled guilty to knowingly transmitting a program, information, code, and command and intentionally causing damage without authorization to a protected computer and identity theft when he worked for the theme park. 

Michael Scheuer was a menu production manager for Disney’s Florida theme parks before he was fired last June. 

He was accused of accessing the computer program used to make the menus for restaurants at the theme parks and making unauthorized changes that could have put guests’ lives in danger. 

Federal prosecutors called him a “threat actor” for manipulating the digital menus. 

“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 criminal complaint stated. 

Scheuer removed the food allergy warnings about peanuts, shellfish, tree nuts, and dairy from the menus. 

Believed to be a separate incident, a New York woman died from an allergic reaction after eating at the Raglan Road Irish Pub in Disney World after she was incorrectly told a menu item did not contain peanuts or dairy in October 2023.  

Disney officials believe they caught changes to the menus before they were distributed to restaurants. 

Scheuer was also accused of inserting profanity into the menus and changing the QR codes for menus to redirect customers to a website advocating for a boycott of Israel. 

He also locked 14 of his co-workers out of their Disney work accounts. 

Disney officials noticed something was wrong when “all of the fonts in the application had been replaced by fonts that depicted symbols, also known as wingdings.” 

The FBI investigated Scheuer and seized his electronic devices. 

He initially claimed that Disney was trying to frame him for the crime before he confessed to it. 

Disney dumped the menu creation software after the incident and switched to manually creating them. 

Fired Disney criminal caused major damage with a computer 

Federal prosecutors argued that Scheuer caused $150,000 worth of damage by altering Disney World’s menus. 

Scheuer attorney David Haas claimed that no one was put in danger by his client’s menu hacking. 

“Unfortunately, he has mental health issues that were exacerbated when Disney fired him upon his return from paternity leave,” Haas said. “No one was ever at risk of injury and he is deeply remorseful for what happened.”

 “[Scheuer] is prepared to accept responsibility for his conduct,” Haas added.

He faces up to 12 years in a prison and a fine that could reach $500,000 depending on what Disney’s damages are determined to be. 

Disney avoided a disaster when the hacked menus were not distributed to the theme parks that serve thousands of guests each day. 

DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.

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