Ex-Disney employee sentenced after changing menus to reference mass shootings

A former Walt Disney World employee, Michael Scheuer, has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for carrying out harmful hacks against the company’s menu system. The sentencing marks the end of a case that caused serious harm to Disney’s reputation and led to major financial losses.

As reported by NBC and Wesh, Scheuer, a 40-year-old man from Winter Garden, Florida, previously worked as a menu production manager at Walt Disney World, a job that gave him broad access to the company’s internal system for creating menus. His employment ended in June 2024 when he was fired for unspecified misconduct.

After being fired, Scheuer launched a series of cyberattacks against his former employer. He used his past access to change menu information across all of Disney’s restaurants. These changes were not harmless pranks; they created real issues for customers and caused significant financial damage to the company.

Scheuer tampered with allergy information, falsely labeling some menu items as safe for people with certain allergies when they were not. This dangerous change could have caused severe allergic reactions or even death for unaware guests. Additionally, he edited the descriptions of wine regions on the menus, replacing them with references to places where recent mass shootings had occurred.

This cruel act further showed the harmful intent behind his actions. Beyond the menu changes, Scheuer’s attacks also included efforts to block certain Disney employees from accessing their company accounts by using denial-of-service attacks. This disruptive method was meant to further hurt the company’s operations and create more chaos.

The full extent of the damage from these attacks is not clearly stated in public records, but the large amount of restitution ordered suggests the impact was serious. The changes to the menu system were caught before they reached customers, preventing a possible public health crisis and more harm to Disney’s reputation. However, the discovery of the hacks led to a federal investigation.

This eventually resulted in Scheuer’s arrest. He pleaded guilty to the charges on January 29. During the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Julie Sneed ordered Scheuer to serve three years in prison and pay $687,776.50 in restitution to Disney to cover the costs of his actions.

While prosecutors had originally asked for a 70-month sentence, Scheuer’s defense lawyer, David Haas, said that Scheuer showed regret for his actions and apologized to the victims in court. Haas also mentioned that Scheuer plans to find a job after his release to support his wife and three young daughters, noting that his wife has serious medical issues and homeschools their children.

Scheuer will get credit for the six months he already spent in jail while waiting for trial and is expected to be released after serving around 85% of his sentence.