Strip search prank call scam

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The strip search prank call scam was a series of incidents occurring for roughly a decade before 2004. These incidents involved a man calling a restaurant, claiming to be a police detective, and convincing managers to conduct strip-searches of female employees. Reports of over 70 such occurrences in 30 U.S. states finally led to the arrest and charging of David R. Stewart, a 37-year-old Florida corrections officer.

On October 31, 2006, Stewart was acquitted of all charges stemming from that arrest, including impersonating a police officer, soliciting sodomy and soliciting sexual abuse.[1] The incident for which he was charged took place at a Louisville, Kentucky-area McDonald's in 2004.[2] This is the only such incident in which Stewart has been prosecuted.[3]

Contents

[edit] Incidents prior to 2004

There are dozens of incidents believed to have been perpetrated by the same caller. Some notable cases include:

  • The first report of such a call came in 1995, in Devil’s Lake, N.D.; another came later that year in Fallon, Nev. The caller, usually pretending to be a police officer investigating a crime, targeted stores in small towns and rural communities — areas where managers were more likely to be trusting.[4]
  • A call to a McDonald's restaurant in Hinesville, Georgia resulted in a janitor performing a body cavity search on a 19-year old cashier.[5]
  • A 17-year-old customer at a Taco Bell in Phoenix, Arizona was strip-searched by a manager receiving this kind of prank call.[6]
  • On Nov. 30, 2000, the caller persuaded the manager at a McDonald's in Leitchfield, Kentucky, to remove her own clothes in front of a customer whom the caller said was suspected of sex offenses. The caller promised that undercover officers would burst in and arrest the customer the moment he attempted to molest her, said Detective Lt. Gary Troutman of the Leitchfield Police Department.[7]
  • On May 29, 2002, a girl celebrating her 18th birthday -- in her first hour of her first day on the job at the McDonald's in Roosevelt, Iowa -- was asked to strip, jog naked and assume a series of embarrassing poses, all at the direction of a caller on the phone, according to court and news accounts.[8]
  • On Jan. 26, 2003, according a police report in Davenport, Iowa, an assistant manager at an Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar conducted a degrading 90-minute search of a waitress at the behest of a caller who said he was a regional manager -- even though the man had called collect, and despite the fact the assistant manager had read a company memo warning about hoax calls just a month earlier. He later told police he'd forgotten about the memo.[9]

[edit] Mount Washington, Kentucky incident

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

The final prank call in this scheme was made to a McDonald's restaurant in Mount Washington, Kentucky on April 9, 2004. According to assistant manager Donna Summers, the caller identified himself as a policeman, 'Officer Scott', he described an employee whom he said was suspected of stealing a customer's purse. Summers called 18-year-old employee Louise Ogborn to her office and told her of the suspicion. Following the instructions of the caller, Summers ordered Ogborn first to empty her pockets, and finally to remove all her clothing except for an apron, in an effort to find the stolen items. Again following the caller's instructions, Summers had another employee watch Ogborn when she had to leave the office to check the restaurant. The first employee, 27 year old Jason Bradley, whom she asked to stay there refused to after he was on the phone with the caller, so she phoned her fiance Walter Nix, asking him to come in to 'help' with the situation. [10]

According to Ogborn, after Summers passed off the phone to Nix, he continued to do as the caller told, even as the caller's requests became progressively more bizarre. A security camera recorded Nix forcing Ogborn to remove her apron, the only article of clothing she was still wearing, and to assume degrading positions, such as standing on a chair and getting on all fours. When Ogborn refused to provide obedience to the caller's instructions, Nix hits the 90 lb Ogborn on the buttocks several times creating painful red welts, and at one point he does this for 10 minutes. At the caller's request, Nix then threatens to beat Ogborn again and forces Ogborn to kiss him and then perform oral sex on him. Ogborn says at the point of sexual assault she was scarred for life.[11] The tape showed that Summers re-entered the office several times and dismissed Ogborn's pleas for help, a statement which Summers denies.

When another employee was asked to take part and objected, Summers decided to call the store manager, whom the caller claimed to have on another phone line. She then discovered that the store manager had not spoken to any police officers, and that the call had been a hoax. A quick-thinking employee dialed *69 to determine that the caller had called from a supermarket pay phone in Panama City, Florida. Summers then called police, who arrested Nix and began an investigation to find the caller.

[edit] Investigation and aftermath

Mt. Washington police quickly realized that this was only the latest in a long line of similar incidents. They contacted police in Panama City, who used the serial number of the calling card used to make the call, and Wal-Mart's records of the store, register, and time of the purchase of that card, to find surveillance camera video of the transaction. The buyer in the video was wearing a correctional officer's uniform, and queries to the correctional department led to the identification of the buyer as David Stewart. After his arrest, Stewart was extradited to Kentucky to face charges of impersonating a police officer, and solicitation of sodomy.

During his interrogation, Stewart insisted he'd never bought a calling card, but detectives found one in his house that had been used to call nine restaurants in the past year, including a Burger King in Idaho Falls, on the day its manager was reportedly duped. Police also found dozens of applications for police department jobs, hundreds of police magazines, police-type uniforms, guns and holsters, indicating that being or becoming a police officer was possibly a fantasy of the suspect.[12] Nevertheless, a jury found Stewart not guilty.[13]

Nix pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and other crimes in February 2006 and received 5 years in prison; Summers entered an Alford plea to a charge of unlawful imprisonment, a misdemeanor, and received probation.[14]

The victim, Louise Ogborn, sued McDonald's for $200 million for failing to protect her during her ordeal.[14] The civil trial began September 10, 2007 and ended October 5, 2007 when a jury awarded Ogborn $5 million in punitive damages and $1.1 million in compensatory damages and expenses. The jury decided that McDonald's was 50 percent at fault for Ogborn's ordeal. Summers, who had joined the suit and asked for $50 million, was awarded $1.1 million.[15]

[edit] Questions about the scam

Many people who hear of these incidents wonder how someone could convince a victim to do these acts. In the ABC News report on the Kentucky incident, psychologist Jeff Gardere said that the caller probably enjoyed manipulating people into doing whatever he wanted, no matter how outlandish. He also notes that the caller was careful to select fast-food restaurants, which tend to have a "by the book" management style, because such an approach makes management less likely to know how to handle novel situations such as those the caller created.[citation needed]

[edit] Cultural influence

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Andrew, Wolfson. "Trial to start for $200 million lawsuit over strip-search hoax", Louisville Courier-Journal, 2007-09-09. Retrieved on 2007-10-30. 
  2. ^ "Courier Journal." [1]
  3. ^ "Courier Journal." [2]
  4. ^ http://hitsusa.com/blog/163/mcdonalds-strip-search-video/ HitUSA blog
  5. ^ Palmer, Alyson M. "Bizarre 'Strip-Search Hoax' Case Before 11th Circuit." Law.com. 25 Sep. 2006. Fulton County Daily Report. 4 Jan. 2007 <http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1158915930386>.
  6. ^ Cooper, Anderson. "360 DEGREES." CNN. 30 Mar. 2004. CNN. 4 Jan. 2007 Transcript.
  7. ^ "Courier Journal." [3]
  8. ^ "Courier Journal." [4]
  9. ^ "Courier Journal." [5]
  10. ^ A hoax most cruel
  11. ^ A hoax most cruel
  12. ^ A hoax most cruel
  13. ^ Acquittal in hoax call that led to sex assault, MSNBC, 31 October 2006
  14. ^ a b Strip-Search Case Closed?, ABC News, 30 November 2007
  15. ^ McDonald's Worker Wins Strip-Search Suit, The Associated Press, 6 October 2007
  • Milgram, S. Obedience to authority, Harper & Row, 1974.
  • Cialdini, R. Influence: Science and practice, Allyn & Bacon, 2000.
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