Strip Search Prank Call Scam - Before The Mount Washington Call

Before The Mount Washington Call

There were incidents in multiple states that followed the same pattern: a caller identifying himself as a police officer would contact a manager or floor supervisor on the pretense of soliciting the supervisor to assist the police in detaining a suspected criminal employee and conducting a search of the person. The caller would provide a physical description of the suspect which the supervisor would recognize. A vast majority of the calls were to fast-food restaurants but a few were made to chain grocery stores. Some notable cases include:

• Two calls reported in 1992: one in Devils Lake, North Dakota, and another in Fallon, Nevada.
• A female McDonald's manager in Leitchfield, Kentucky, was convinced on November 30, 2000 to undress before a customer when the caller persuaded her that the customer was a suspected sex offender and that her serving as bait would permit undercover officers to arrest him when he showed an interest in her.
• A call to a McDonald's restaurant in Hinesville, Georgia, in February 2003, in which a female manager, who thought she was speaking with a police officer in the presence of the director of operations for the franchisee GWD Management Corporation, took a 19‑year-old female employee into the women's bathroom and strip-searched her, and brought in a 55‑year-old male employee to perform a body cavity search to uncover hidden drugs. McDonald's and franchisee GWD Management Corporation were taken to court over the incident. In 2005 U.S. district judge John F. Nangle granted summary judgment to McDonald's, and denied in part summary judgment to GWD Management Corporation. In 2006, The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision.
• On January 26, 2003, an Applebee's neighborhood grill and bar assistant manager victimized a waitress after receiving a collect call from someone who purported to be a regional manager.
• On June 3, 2003, a Taco Bell manager in Juneau, Alaska, stripped a 14‑year-old female customer and forced her to perform lewd acts, at the request of a caller who claimed he was working with the company to investigate drug abuse.
• In July 2003, a 36‑year-old Winn-Dixie grocery store manager in Panama City, Florida, received a call instructing him to bring a 19‑year-old female cashier, who matched a physical description provided by the caller, into the office for a strip search. The cashier was forced to disrobe and pose in various positions as part of the search. The incident was ended when another manager entered the office to retrieve a set of keys.
• In March 2004, a 17‑year-old female customer at a Taco Bell in Fountain Hills, Arizona, near Phoenix, was strip-searched by a manager receiving a call from a man claiming to be a police officer.