A former Walt Disney World Resort cast member has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for a series of disturbing actions that compromised guest safety. Michael Scheuer, 40, was sentenced on Thursday, following an investigation into his hacking of restaurant menus, altering allergen information, and inserting offensive content into Disney materials.
Scheuer, a menu production manager for Walt Disney World Resort, was fired in June 2024. However, he continued to access the third-party menu system Disney used on his personal devices for months after his termination.
It wasn’t until October 2024, when the FBI arrested Scheuer, that his illegal activities came to light. In January 2025, Scheuer pleaded guilty to charges including “knowingly transmitting a program, code, or command to a protected computer and intentionally causing damage” and “committing aggravated identity theft.”
U.S. District Judge Julie S. Sneed sentenced Scheuer to three years in federal prison and ordered him to pay $687,776.50 in restitution to the victims. According to the criminal complaint, Scheuer took drastic and dangerous actions out of retaliation for his firing, manipulating several menus.
He changed fonts, added profanities, and even altered critical allergen information. Most dangerously, Scheuer marked certain menu items as safe for individuals with peanut allergies when they could have been deadly.
The former Disney cast member’s vandalism didn’t stop there. He went further, adding a swastika to one menu and manipulating wine region details to reference recent mass shootings. He also launched denial-of-service (DOS) attacks to lock current Disney cast members out of their accounts.
Scheuer even visited one of his DOS targets’ homes at night, giving a thumbs-up to their security camera. In response, Disney provided security for the affected cast member and offered accommodations at a nearby hotel.
Walt Disney World Resort caught the manipulated menus before they were distributed to restaurants and took swift action, shutting down its menu creation program for over a week to prevent further attacks. Despite the company’s efforts to mitigate the damage, Scheuer’s actions were costly, with Disney estimating the financial impact at at least $150,000.
The company has since discontinued the third-party menu system, instituting a manual menu approval and distribution process until it finishes creating its own platform.
When Scheuer was first arrested, his attorney told NBC News that “the allegations acknowledge that no one was injured or harmed.” Scheuer’s defense also included claims of a disability, which he believed played a role in his termination from Walt Disney World Resort.
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