‘Don’t Pick Up the Phone’: Hoaxed McDonald’s Employee Louise Ogborn Won $6.1 Million in Restitution From the Fast Food Chain
Don’t Pick Up the Phone is one of Netflix’s popular true crime series. It tells the story of a disturbing hoax caller who got restaurant managers to commit sexual assault on their employees in the ’90s and 2000s.
The fast food chain even awarded one former McDonald’s worker millions after her story made headlines around the country. Here’s what you need to know about the victims of the hoax featured on ‘Don’t Pick Up the Phone.’
Louise Ogborn’s case is the first one detailed in ‘Don’t Pick Up the Phone’
In 2004, Ogborn was 18 years old and working at a McDonald’s in Mount Washington, Kentucky, when assistant manager Donna Summers summoned her into a small room.
Summers said a police officer was calling their restaurant about a theft. The alleged officer on the phone suspected Ogborn was the thief and told Summers to strip-search the teenager.
Summers complied, which escalated into hours of Ogborn being sexually assaulted by Summers and her fiancé, Walter Nix Jr. Ogborn, who even performed sexual acts on Nix. The event ended when a maintenance worker named Thomas Simms was asked to watch Ogborn. He realized something was not right about the situation.
There were as many as 100 cases like Ogborn’s all around the country. Don’t Pick Up the Phone focuses on two police officers, Buddy Stump from Kentucky and Victor Flaherty from Massachusetts, as they attempted to track down and convict the suspected scam caller.
Louise Ogborn won $6.1 million in restitution from McDonald’s
After the incident at McDonald’s, Ogborn was involved in a lawsuit against the fast food chain. Ann Oldfather’s attorney argued McDonald’s failed to warn employees of the hoax calls, which had been occurring since the ’90s.
According to CTV News, Ogborn’s legal team asked for $200 million in damages. The jury awarded her $5 million in punitive damages and $1.1 million in compensatory damages.
“Louise has stood up for what happened to her and what McDonald’s failed to do for three and a half years, and this jury just vindicated her completely,” Oldfather stated.
Only one person was ever convicted in relation to the scam calls — and it wasn’t the caller
As seen in Don’t Pick Up the Phone, detectives Stump and Flaherty traced the scam calls to a man named David R. Stewart in Panama City, Florida. Stewart was put on trial in 2006 for solicitation of sodomy and impersonating a police officer. However, a jury found him not guilty of these charges due to a lack of evidence.
In the end, only one person was convicted in relation to the scam calls. Walter Nix Jr. was convicted of sodomy and assault, which landed him in prison for five years. Donna Summers called off their engagement shortly after the scam call incident.
