According to a federal complaint filed in US District Court for the Middle District of Florida in October 2024, a disgruntled Disney employee allegedly used his still active passwords to access a menu creation system used by Walt Disney World’s restaurants to change the listing of foods that contained peanuts to say they were safe for people with peanut allergies.
Now, according to a plea agreement entered on Friday, that employee, Michael 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.
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.”
Federal Prosecutors said Scheuer’s job responsibility was creating and distributing menus for the company. Although none of Scheuer’s changes made it on the printed or digital versions of the menus, the act resulted in $150,000 in damages according to the company in the complaint.
“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.
Scheuer’s actions apparently went farther, focusing on peanut, tree nut, shellfish and milk allergens according to prosecutors.
“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.
According to Fox Orlando, Scheuer also substituted fonts, added profanity, and changed the pricing of some items on the menu.
He also changed information about some wines, replacing their geographic regions or origin with locations of “recent mass shootings”, and embedded a swastika on menus according to the filing.
He also prevented over a dozen employees from being able to access their accounts and systems.
When questioned by investigators, Scheuer 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.
