I just lost my appetite for Wendy’s chili, and not because I’m afraid of finding a finger in it. When the finger-in-the-chili story first emerged last March, I was one of those loyal customers who placed their chili orders with a cheery request to “hold the finger, please.” No, what’s soured me on Wendy’s is the sentence just meted out to the finger-planters --Anna Ayala and Jaime Placencia of Santa Clara CA -- who have been found guilty of fraud and extortion and are being sent away for 9 and 12 years respectively.
All right, it was a stupid trick, but an average of over 10 years each? I could see three months, possibly six, for the temporary damage to the company’s reputation. But no one should get ten years unless they are found guilty of putting two hands’ worth of fingers into the chili -- fingers which had been forcibly removed from the Wendy’s manager’s hands.
Asked to comment on the sentence, Placencia’s lawyer said, “It certainly sends a clear and loud message.” But what is that the message -- that American sentencing is out of control? Crimes that would get you a few months in a European court can put you away here for years. Under California’s three-strikes-and-you’re-out law, people have received life sentences for stealing a doughnut or slice of pizza. Excessive sentencing, combined with the war on drugs, has given the US the unpleasant distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world.
There’s another message here too: Don’t mess with a big corporation. If Ayala and Placencia had tried finger fraud at, say, Tony’s Diner, they wouldn’t have ended up owing anyone $21 million, the amount Wendy’s claims to have lost as a result of the fake finger food.
And if corporate power isn’t one of the issues here, how come there’s so little interest in the source of the finger? Placencia got it from an acquaintance named Brian Paul Rossiter, who has said it was severed in an “industrial accident.” What kind of an accident? And how much was Rossiter’s employer to blame? Because the real crime here -- the human damage as opposed to the monetary loss -- was the mutilation of this man’s hand.
When a corporation is planting the fingers, the courts aren’t likely to be anywhere near as vindictive as they were with Ayala and Placencia. Consider the case of Felipe Rocha, a California prison inmate who found a finger in his vegetarian meal last spring. The finger turned out to have originated in another industrial accident -- at a company called G.A. Food Services Inc., which supplies frozen meals to the prison. Freaked out by the unwanted protein supplement, Rocha sued the company for $75,000, but has so far been offered a settlement that, according to his lawyer, he considers “insultingly low.” Again, no one seems to be investigating the “industrial accident” that nearly compromised Rocha’s vegetarianism.
So I’m looking at my Wendy’s chili a little more warily these days. The beans are recognizable, though I cannot be sure they are not the kidneys of a very small animal. It’s the “meat” that worries me. Nothing I have ever done to beef in my kitchen has ever produced such perfect little pellets. But if I were to point out their remarkable resemblance to rodent turds, would I end up like Rocha -- and possibly now Ayala and Placencia -- condemned to eat human fingers along with my prison chow while serving a multi-year term?
But things could be a lot worse, sentencing-wise. This month’s Harper’s magazine reports that the mayor of Las Vegas has proposed “thumbing” as a punishment for graffiti artists: “I’m saying that maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb.” Brilliant solution, Mr. Mayor, only why not make them eat it too?
IMPORTANT .. pass it along ...
Quote from Bush in 2004 --
"A wiretap requires a court order," President Bush declared in a statement in 2004. He added, "When we're talking about chasing down terriorists, we're talking about getting a court order when we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand [that] constitutional guarantees are in place... because we value the Constitution."
Posted by: john cook | January 20, 2006 at 11:42 AM
Given that these two had a history of doing scams like this, I think a sentence of a few months would have sent the wrong message, i.e., that it is ok to try run these scams. I think the sentence is appropriate - for them, and as a lesson to others who are willing to try it.
Posted by: Paul | January 20, 2006 at 12:16 PM
Really, Life sentence for a doughnut? Could you elaborate on this and the pizza case? What county was it in?
Posted by: Brian | January 20, 2006 at 09:58 PM
The life sentences for petty shop-lifting were under California's "3 strikes and you're out" law. In each cases, these were the 3rd offenses.
Posted by: Barbara E | January 21, 2006 at 10:24 AM
Petty shop-lifting? You're lying, Barb.
And it's interesting how you determine that the only really guilty party is someone whose guilt you have no actual evidence of. The man claims he lost his finger in an "industrial accident".
Where did/does he work? That should be relatively easy for you to snoop out. Did you try?
Overall a rather pathetic entry.
Posted by: A3K | January 30, 2006 at 01:59 PM
http://www.thatliberalmedia.com/archives/003042.html
From the above link:
"As L.A. Times editors damn well know, nobody is serving life in California for stealing pizza. The letter's claim to the contrary is based on the infamous case of Jerry DeWayne Williams. Williams initially received 25-to-life in 1994 under the Three Strikes law for stealing pizza from some children -- conduct that in many ways resembled a robbery. But in 1996, after the California Supreme Court affirmed that judges have the power to dismiss strikes in the interests of justice, a judge reduced Williams's sentence to 6 years. Williams has long since completed the sentence."
So did you have other examples of "petty shoplifting" resulting in a life sentence, Barb?
Posted by: A3K | January 30, 2006 at 02:03 PM
Oh, and regarding that article you wrote for "The Progressive" where you start out being cute by saying, "Hi, George" at the beginning of all your e-mails.
You do know that the communications the NSA was listening to were international calls placed to numbers found in possession of al Qaeda operatives, right? I mean, your piece made it appear that any mention whatsoever of al Qaeda made you a snoop target and you clearly know that's BS, right?
Do you know that, Barb?
I mean, it seems like you and several like-minded individuals are going out of your way to appear to not know the difference between what is actually going on and the fantasy world of NSA snoops listening in on pathetic little missives between you and your family members. All in all it doesn't seem the effort is yielding you or the country much.
Posted by: A3K | January 30, 2006 at 02:10 PM
A3K -Shhhhhhhh! How can I listen in on Barb's phonecalls with you chattering in the background??
Posted by: Airdale | January 30, 2006 at 02:18 PM
Excellent point, Billy Ray.
Posted by: A3K | January 30, 2006 at 02:21 PM
Your inability to recall even recent history frightens me, Barb. Especially when it's quite relevant to the point you're so outrageously trying to demonstrate. When people do that it makes me want to tear off all of my clothes and run into the woods. Or something.
Posted by: Unfrozen Cavegirl Blogger | January 30, 2006 at 03:38 PM
The chilli sentences are a bad joke! In Canada you would get community service, depending on your record.
Posted by: Chris Hanson | February 27, 2006 at 06:21 PM
Most Americans are absolutely clueless about what is really going on in "prison America" the new war on poverty. Take for example the regional jail system, currently coming into fashion in a community near you. The idea behind these jails is a 'for profit' system of incarceration. There is plenty to investigate here, but let's start with one of the more notable features of this 'for profit' institution. If an inmate becomes ill while incarcerated (and what are the chances of that) he is billed for the visit to the, more often than not, inept clinic. His bill, if he/she cannot pay it then accrues until he is looking at whatever size debt his incarceration has allowed him to accumulate. Spend some time in the visiting room of your local jail, or regional jail, and take note of the people coming to visit. They are poor. Most of them are women and children who are coming to visit a son, a father or the family breadwinner. It falls upon these family members to give the incarcerated money for things in jail like toiletries and medicine. If the inmate has been to the clinic, his family must pay that bill, and if they don’t, whatever money they put on the inmate’s account for anything, including long underwear in the winter, which is an absolute must, will first go to pay his account for being sick, and then if there is any left after that, he might get to buy some underwear, or Tylenol, or cheese crackers, or whatever it is that these ‘for profit’ jails pander to the poor. Am I confused, or are the families of the incarcerated being punished as well, and is this the new American way….liberty and justice for all is an income based ideology? If you are poor, then your experience of justice is far different than that of the wealthy, and this goes well beyond your ability to hire a lawyer. I suspect that the real crime of the chilli perpretrators has more to do with their economic status than anyone wants to admit.
Posted by: MissAnneThrope | February 28, 2006 at 02:00 PM
and by the way, andre 3000 wanna be.....your comments are a ridiculous waste of space. Who cares if they got the facts right...really? Our fearless leader did a worse thing with his weapons of mass destruction story and that hasn't gotten him impeached yet. The point is/was that our criminal justice system is out of control, and morons like you prefer to dispute the updated facts of a case that was an excellent example of ridiculous sentencing--just so that you don't have trouble sleeping at night when you contemplate the very real possibility that you might be the next victim of our liberty and justice for all--ie. "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" or eat more pork....the other white meat.
Posted by: MissAnneThrope | February 28, 2006 at 02:36 PM