Remeber the finger in the chilli ? here's a new one for Michigan!!

18th Mar 2006 14:19 #1

Banned

Customer accused of planting dead mouse in restaurant burrito

3/10/2006, 4:27 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — A man has been charged with plotting to strike it rich by planting a dead mouse in a burrito at a Taco Bell restaurant.

Ryan Daniel Goff, 20, of Traverse City, was arraigned Thursday on an attempted extortion count. He laughed and smiled as District Judge Thomas Phillips read the charge.

"I don't recall seeing anything like this before," Grand Traverse County prosecutor Alan Schneider told the Traverse City Record-Eagle. "It was pretty ill-conceived from the beginning."

The sheriff's department said that while eating at the restaurant Jan. 24, Goff complained to an employee that his burrito tasted "funny."

Goff declined a replacement burrito and insisted on keeping his when he left, investigators said.

He later called Taco Bell's regional manager, Robert Buckle, and said he wanted "something that would make my ears tingle" to settle the matter, court documents said.

"There was an implied threat there to the regional manager, and that is why we charged this as an attempt," Schneider said.

He said Goff's girlfriend told an investigator that she was with Goff when he bought frozen mice at a pet store and saw him place one in the burrito.

Goff already was in jail on unrelated charges Thursday, but Phillips boosted his bond to $100,000 after his arraignment on the felony charge, punishable by up to five years in prison.

County jail spokesman Lt. Dennis "Buck" Monroe said Friday that inmates were not allowed to grant interviews.

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Information from: Traverse City Record-Eagle, http://www.record-eagle.com

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-32/1142003653308710.xml&s...t=newsmichigan

And then the Peanut butter mouse

Missouri Woman Claims She Found Rodent In Peanut Butter Jar

Created: 6/27/2005 11:21:52 PM
Updated: 6/28/2005 11:26:04 AM

A St. Charles grandmother is in shock. She says there was more than just peanut butter in her jar of Jif. What she found was a dead mouse.

Patt Holt says she scooped up something that was small, furry, and definitely should not have been there. She has preserved the jar and put it's contents in tupperware. She says she made the discovery a week and a half ago when she was making a peanut butter sandwich for her grandson. Holt says, "I reached the spoon into the bottom to get a nice big glop and pulled up that."

It appeared to be a small, peanut butter covered animal. And that wasn't all. In the bottom of the jar Patt could see what looked like fur and small bones. She rushed upstairs to show her coworkers. One of them, Brian Iverson says, "I looked at it for a second and I was like that that looks like it's a mouse."

Another friend, Jeanne Rogers, agreed. She says, "It was gray and furry and it looked like it had a little eye socket on it and just little feet kinda sticking up."

Holt had professional pictures taken, contacted a lawyer, then called the Food and Drug Administration. They had a representative come last week. Patt says, "He said that's definitely something that shouldn't be in your peanut butter. He said it could be a mouse. It could even be a bird."

The J.M. Smucker company that manufactures Jif has yet to see the animal. However a spokesperson released a statement saying, "We believe this complaint has no merit. We are confident our production processes ensure that this could not happen in our product. And we have never experienced or had a complaint like this previously."

Holt says, "Because it's so far in the bottom, that mouse had to be in the jar before the peanut butter came." Patt says she wants the company to be held accountable, not because she's concerned about money but because she's worried about her family's health.

She says, "That's what bothered me because I had been feeding my little grandson and myself peanut butter right down to within that far of the mouse."

So far they've been a little nauseous, but had no other effects. Still Patt Holt says will never open another jar without looking in the bottom first. She says, "We have to trust that the tomato soup and cottage cheese and everything that we eat is fine. And I trusted that this was fine and it wasn't."

A company called RQA is coming to pick the mouse up on Tuesday. Both they and the J.M. Smucker company plan to run tests on the animal

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=41442