Allan Mathis, the manager of a Hardee's in Rapid City, South Dakota, who strip-searched an employee in June 2003, said in an interview: "I didn't want to be doing it. But it was like he was watching me."
Mcdonalds Strip Search Unedited Version
Allan Mathis, the manager of a Hardee's in Rapid City, South Dakota, who strip-searched an employee in June 2003, said in an interview: "I didn't want to be doing it. But it was like he was watching me."
Mcdonalds Strip Search Unedited Version
"The assembly-line process very deliberately tries to take away any thought or discretion from workers," said Reiter, who teaches at Toronto's York University and who spent 10 months working at a Burger King as part of her research. "They are appendages to the machine."
At a Burger King in Pendleton, Indiana, a supervisor was so intent on finishing a search of a 15-year-old girl in December 2001 that when the girl's father arrived to pick her up from work, he had to jump over the counter to end her humiliation.
And in Dover, Delaware, a Burger King manager who was strip-searching an 18-year-old employee in March 2003 fought off the worker's mother and boyfriend so strenuously that state police had to be called.
Some of the strip searches weren't even reported to police, because embarrassed restaurant officials were reluctant to publicize them, said Jablonski, the ex-FBI agent. The fiercely competitive chains also initially were reluctant to talk to each other.
Stewart insisted he'd never bought a calling card, but when detectives searched his house, they found one that had been used to call nine restaurants in the past year, including the Idaho Falls Burger King on the day its manager was duped.
"You don't have to be a Phi Beta Kappa to know not to strip-search a girl who is accused of stealing change," said Roger Hall, the lawyer for a woman who won $250,000 after being strip-searched at a McDonald's in Louisa, Kentucky.
Although a McDonald's security executive had sent a 10- to 15-second voice message to every store in the region about hoax calls about a week before the Mount Washington incident, Siddons, the manager there, said in her deposition it didn't mention strip searches.
"Employers have a right to make you empty your pockets, take off your coat or pass through a metal detector," unless a union contract prohibits it, said Louisville lawyer Alton Priddy, who represents employees. But he and James U. Smith III, who represents employers, said they've never heard of an employer strip-searching a worker and it would be permissible only in the most limited settings, such as a defense plant entrusted with protecting military secrets.
Companies also should periodically inform operators and franchisees about strip-search hoaxes and other scams, said Atlanta lawyer Mary Ann Oakley, who defended McDonald's in a strip-search case and whose firm, Holland & Knight, publishes a newsletter for the hospitality industry.
It was the shocking story -- and unbelievable surveillance video -- that riveted the nation. A young McDonald's employee humiliated, forced to strip and then to perform a sexual act in the back office, during her work day.
But thanks to an Internet search by his chief of police, Stump discovered that calls like this have been going on for more than 10 years. Ogborn, it turns out, was only the latest in a long line of victims.
At a McDonald's in Hinesville, Ga., a caller convinced a 55-year-old janitor to do a cavity search of a 19-year-old cashier, while in Fargo, N.D., a manager at a local Burger King strip-searched a 17-year-old female employee.
In Phoenix, a caller had a Taco Bell manager pick out a customer and then strip-search her. And police in Massachusetts had been looking for a man who called three Wendy's restaurants near Boston in a single day.
According to police, a search of Stewart's trailer revealed guns, police paraphernalia and training manuals. Police also discovered that Stewart had attended a local police academy and even volunteered as a deputy with a small police department in western Florida.
Then a bombshell in the courtroom, detectives testified that they had recovered a calling card from Stewart's home that they say had been used to call a burger king in Idaho -- the same restaurant at which a female manager received a call instructing her to strip search a male employee. That call had been made nearly a year before the call to the McDonald's in Kentucky.
Netflix is airing a three-part docuseries called "Don't Pick Up the Phone," about a strip-search case that occurred at a McDonald's in Mount Washington, Kentucky, that was instigated by a caller posing as a police officer.
The series also notes that the caller called as many as 100 fast food restaurants over 12 years and duped managers into strip-searched young employees on the grounds that they had stolen or committed other crimes. It doesn't explore why so many managers went along with the calls.
The latest incident occurred last week in Arizona, when a Taco Bell manager received a call from a man claiming to be a police officer who urged the manager to strip-search a female whom the caller said had stolen a pocketbook.
Investigators say that there have been dozens of similar cases going as far back as 1999, involving Burger King, Wendy's, Applebee's and other restaurants. In addition to Arizona, similar incidents involving both male and female managers conducting searches have been reported in Massachusetts, South Dakota, Indiana, Utah and Ohio.
In Rapid City, S.D., a former fast-food restaurant manager was accused of holding a 19-year-old female employee against her will and forcing her to strip during a three-hour search in the restaurant's back office. Allan Mathis was acquitted last month of kidnapping and second-degree rape charges in connection with the June incident.
Prosecutors said a videotape showed Mathis sexually assaulting the woman. The woman testified that Mathis made her exercise naked, sit on his lap and submit to a body search that included breast and genital touching.
The hoax caller usually poses as a police officer, but sometimes the caller claims to be a district manager, Arpaio said. The caller then instructs the manager to search a young female of \"generic description,\" he said.
The woman was among supervisors at four Wendy's restaurants south of Boston who strip-searched employees, saying they were told to do so by a phone caller who said he was a policeman. The other incidents occurred in Whitman, West Bridgewater and Wareham. No criminal charges have been brought.
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