"Ronald Helm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name. [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Associated Press, 04/19/98 15:02 > > > >HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (AP) - A New Jersey scientist has been sentenced to 30 months >in jail for planting a fried rat's tail in a McDonald's ``Happy Meal.'' > >Prosecutors said Michael Zanakis, 44, had hoped to extort $5 million from the >fast-food chain. He was sentenced in federal court Thursday on a December >conviction for mail fraud, wire fraud and extortion. > >Zanakis, of Harding, N.J., took a rat's tail from the medical research >laboratory where he worked, had it fried and then placed it in a package of >french fries he bought for his son at a McDonald's in Port Jefferson Station >on >Jan. 15, 1996, prosecutors charged. > >``He planted the tail and thought he would get away with it,'' said Assistant >U.S. Attorney Leonard Lato. ``The next day he was on the phone with >McDonald's. >We had him on tape demanding money.'' > >Zanakis claimed his 2-year-old son had bitten into and swallowed part of the >tail and threatened to go to the news media with his allegations. > >Zanakis was also convicted of planting bits of grease in a can of Coca-Cola >Classic and then taking $4,600 from the Coca-Cola Co. and the Coca-Cola >Bottling Co. of New York to keep quiet about it. > >His lawyer, Jeh Johnson, said Zanakis was disappointed by the sentence and >planned to appeal. Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
