The strip search phone call scam was a series of incidents, mostly occurring in rural areas of the United States, that extended over a period of at least ten years, starting in 1994.
[3] There were numerous prior incidents in many states that followed the pattern of the fraudulent call to a McDonald's restaurant in Mount Washington, Kentucky.
With every hoax, a male caller who identified himself as a police officer or other authority figure would contact a manager or supervisor and would solicit their help in detaining an employee or customer who was suspected of a crime, such as theft or drug possession.
The caller gave Summers a vague description of a slightly built young white woman with dark hair, who was suspected of theft.
Ogborn was brought into an office and ordered to strip naked, with Summers placing the clothes in a bag and taking them to her car, as instructed.
At this point, Summers became suspicious and decided to call a higher-level manager (whom the caller earlier had claimed to have been speaking to on another phone line).
[1] Mount Washington police, after doing a simple keyword search on the Internet, quickly realized that this was only the latest in a long series of similar incidents that extended over a period of about 10 years.
Several similar scam calls had been placed to Boston-area restaurants, and Flaherty had already pulled surveillance camera footage from a Walmart in Panama City.
The Massachusetts investigation had gone cold when their surveillance video failed to show the purchaser—the cameras had been trained on the store's parking lot and not on the cash registers.
Subsequent queries directed to the private security firm's human resources department led to the identification of the phone card buyer as David R. Stewart—a married man with five children—who was then arrested.
Both the defense and the prosecution attorneys speculated that a lack of direct evidence, such as a recording of the caller's voice, might have led to the jury finding him not guilty.
[27] Louise Ogborn, the victim, underwent therapy and treatment with medication to address post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
In an interview with ABC News, she said that after the abuse she "felt dirty" and had difficulty making and maintaining friendships because she wouldn't "allow anyone to get close to" her.
[24] She was fired from McDonald's for violating corporate policies prohibiting both strip searches and for allowing a non-McDonald's employee to enter the restaurant's office.
[2] Summers entered an Alford guilty plea to a single count of unlawful imprisonment as a misdemeanor and was sentenced to one year probation.
[26] Three years after the incident and while still undergoing therapy, Louise Ogborn sued McDonald's for $200 million for failing to protect her during her ordeal.
These were her grounds for the suit: Donna Summers also sued McDonald's, asking for $50 million, for failing to warn her about the previous hoaxes.
[32] On November 20, 2009, the Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld the jury's verdict but reduced the punitive damages award to Summers to $400,000.
[34] After the court decisions, McDonald's revised its manager-training program to emphasize awareness of scam phone calls and protection of employees' rights.