The standoff between Disney and a former employee ends in court. Michael Scheurer is accused of endangering the health of customers by wanting revenge after his dismissal. The man was responsible for publishing menus in restaurants at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. He was fired in June for misconduct and the dismissal proved heated. According to a criminal complaint filed in a Florida court, Michael Scheurer wanted revenge.
For about three months after his firing, the man hacked into the menu creation system and made changes to it, NBC Miami explains. “Some of these changes, such as changing prices or adding profanities to menus, were rather benign,” the complaint explains. But Scheurer went so far as to tinker with the allergen information on certain dishes offered, leading people to believe that they did not contain peanuts when that was in fact the case.
Employees became aware of outside intervention on the menus when all fonts were changed to Wingdings, a font that uses symbols in place of numbers and letters. “Because of this change, all saved menus were unusable because the writing change propagated throughout the database,” the court document reads. Disney had to take the software offline for two weeks while it repaired the damage caused by Michael Scheurer. In September, FBI agents conducted a search of the former employee’s home and seized four computers.
The American is also accused of having hacked the accounts of 14 ex-colleagues and of having kept personal information about them. Scheurer disputes the facts with which he is accused and accuses Disney of wanting to trap him, asserting that the disability he suffers from would have influenced the group’s decision to fire him.
However, he admits to having entered the company’s computer system, but only to consult his pay slips and other financial documents. “The plaintiffs acknowledge that no one was injured or affected. “I look forward to presenting my client’s side of the story,” said David Haas, Scheurer’s attorney.
