Nevada couple sentenced in chili finger case

AP ^ | 1/18/6 | Kim Curtis

[SmithL]

San Jose -- A Nevada couple who cooked up a scheme to plant a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili to extort money from the fast food chain were sentenced Wednesday to lengthy prison terms.

Anna Ayala, 40, who said she bit into the digit, was sentenced to nine years in state prison. Her husband, Jaime Plascencia, 44, who supplied the finger, was ordered locked up for more than a dozen years.

The pair pleaded guilty Sept. 9 in Santa Clara County Superior Court to two felony charges arising from the chili-finger scam: conspiracy to file a false insurance claim and attempted grand theft with damages exceeding $2.5 million.

Ayala said she retched March 22 after biting into the fingertip while dining with her family at a Wendy's in San Jose.

Although authorities suspected a hoax — in part because the finger wasn't cooked — word of the stomach-turning find quickly spread around the world. The Dublin, Ohio-based fast food chain claimed it lost $2.5 million in sales because of the bad publicity and dozens of workers at the company's Northern California franchises were laid off.

[stephenjohnbanker]

I would give the VT judge 2 months!

[Bob]

I wonder why the mastermind received less time than her husband.

Since it was his co-worker's finger that was used, perhaps he was the mastermind and she just played her part in the scam.