Disney Declassified: Tales of Real Life Disney Scandals, Sex, Accidents and Deaths (18 page)

That case was solved; however, there are two unsolved cases of rape against cast members working at Walt Disney World in the 1990s. The first case reported on April 1, 1990 happened when a woman was leaving work at the Caribbean Beach Resort after midnight. As she approached her car, a man with a knife forced her into the woods and raped her. Her attacker wasn’t apprehended.

In May of 1999, a security guard working the overnight shift at the Magic Kingdom heard an alarm sounding as she was underground walking through the Utilidoors. Around 5:00
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., she responded to the storage area beneath Pecos Bill's restaurant in Frontierland. The thirty-two-year-old woman found nothing suspicious in the area. She proceeded to the ladies restroom where a man threatened her with an object. She was unable to get a description of the rapist as the lights were off in the bathroom. Police believed it to be a fellow employee as the park was closed and it took place in an employee’s only area.

Heading back to the Caribbean Beach Resort, a twenty-year-old woman from Maine was staying at the resort on Halloween of 1992. Wanda claimed she checked into the hotel with her ten-month-old baby, ordered a crib to be delivered to her room, and then went out to meet up with family members. When she retuned that evening the crib was in her room, as was a man. The man, dressed as Dracula, proceeded to duct tape her eyes and mouth and then taped her to the bed where she was raped and beaten. She was able to free herself and call 911.

In June of 1993, Wanda sued Disney. She claimed Disney was negligent in her rape. They had an inadequate 911 system (her call didn’t go to Orange County Sheriffs; it went to Disney security first, then Orange County was dispatched, but they didn’t find out about her rape until over thirty minutes after she called), ineffective security patrols, poor screening of employees, poor accounting of room keys, and insufficient maintenance of guest room locks. Disney tried to settle the case for $200,000; she declined, insisting on $1.2 million.

The woman’s experience sounded horrendous and her suit should have been justified, if only it really happened. Turns out, Wanda faked the whole thing. The hoax was an effort to scam Disney out of money. She and her brother, thirty-three-year-old James, concocted the whole scenario. Wanda, not really from Maine, had sex with a friend before she went to her room (in case tests were performed), had her brother tie her to the bed, and then he beat her with a stick.

The deputies were initially a little wary of her story, as there were some minor inconsistencies. The tape on her mouth and other parts of her body was perfectly smooth and there were no signs of struggle, but this wasn’t enough for them to totally disregard what she was saying. It wasn’t until an anonymous call came in to police (from her half-sister) telling them the hoax was money-driven. The brother and sister team hatched the plot one night over dinner at an Orlando restaurant. The half-sister dropped the dime after becoming angry at the duo in October of 1993.

In December of 1993, Wanda was arrested in Tennessee. In May of 1994, she pleaded guilty to grand theft and falsely reporting a crime. Under her plea agreement, she was sentence to three and a half years in prison and had to make restitution in the amount of $24,000 to Disney and the Sheriff's department for investigative costs. Her brother James died in March of 1994 before his sentencing.

Believe it or not, Walt Disney World has two rape hoaxes in its history. In February of 2006, nineteen-year-old cast member Elizabeth told police four French men raped her at her apartment complex. Elizabeth claimed around 4:00
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. she was outside her apartment building when she was approached and then physically grabbed by four men. The men took her to another apartment where she was gang raped.

Elizabeth said she eventually got free from them and returned home to her apartment. She put in a full day's work at Walt Disney World, and then called police to report the assault when she got home. She told police the four men took turns raping her, as she begged and pleaded with them to stop. Police identified the men as members of the Disney International Program, a program that employs foreign workers at EPCOT’s World Showcase. The men were fully cooperative with police and told authorities the sex was consensual and they had proof, one of the participants videotaped the tryst. Authorities watched the video and saw nothing factual about Elizabeth’s rape claims. Elizabeth was then arrested and charged with filing a false police report and making false statements, in addition to a possession charge of a small amount of marijuana.

Another story at Walt Disney World that involved a Disney cast member utilizing a video recorder also culminated in an arrest in January of 1992. This time, the recorded evidence wasn’t used to exonerate the cast member but to prosecute him. Twenty-one-year-old John, a wardrobe assistant, recorded female cast members getting changed into their costumes for work at a dressing room inside of Cinderella’s Castle.

In May of 1991, Disney security was investigating thefts from the female cast members' dressing room. During the investigation, they learned holes had been drilled around the dressing room and bathroom so someone could see in while the ladies changed. The female cast members had been notified of the situation and were assured the holes would be filled in; however, they were not. In June of 1991, John developed an elaborate scheme to not only peep on the girls in various stages of undress but to videotape them. Through the holes drilled into the wall, John arranged numerous mirrors, ran extension cords for electricity and utilized an unlocked dumbwaiter to make videos of the girls. All told, he made three videos and not only shared them with friends and other Disney employees as part of the entertainment for a Disney employee bachelor party.

By January, another employee tipped off Disney security about John’s peeping. Security planned a sting operation and installed their own video equipment to tape John taping the girls. Sure enough, January 8
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came and he went to his spot to starting filming the girls and pleasuring himself. Disney security moved in and caught him with his pants down. John was arrested and obviously fired from Disney. He pleaded no contest to the criminal charges against him and was sentenced to four years probation. The dancers, six in all, filed a $40 million lawsuit against Disney for emotional distress, an invasion of privacy and sexual harassment. In December of 1995, the suit was settled out of court and terms were not disclosed.

With the employee docket complete for now, the attention turns to situations involving Disney guests. Not in an effort to quantify the magnitude of each of these stories, as they are all terrible, but let's get one of the most horrible ones out of the way first. In 1998, forty-one-year-old Matthew Mancuso was living outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was an educated, prosperous, divorced dad. Matthew contacted a New Jersey adoption agency and began the process of adopting a young girl from Russia; let’s just call her Angel for our purposes. Angel was five years old and already had a tough go at things despite being so young. She was born to an alcoholic mother, who tried to kill her by stabbing her with a knife in the neck. This happened just a year before Michael went to Russia to officially adopt his baby girl.

At last, perhaps she received a break in life; she was moving to America and could have a fresh start with her new adoptive father.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. Life became hell living with him. From her first night in this country, Michael sexually abused her. He abused her daily: physically, sexually and mentally (I’ll try spare most of the horrific details), and aside from the sexual abuse, he kept her isolated from the world, oftentimes locking her up in a basement. He starved her so she wouldn’t mature. This despicable man was a serial pedophile and shared his exploits with the world as he traded hundreds of sick photos of Angel with other child pornographers in the world.

In late 2004 and early 2005, Canadian investigators in the sex crimes unit of Toronto, repeatedly came across a series of child pornography images on different pedophiles' computers. Authorities saw the same photos over and over of a young girl in a hotel room, hot tub, arcade, elevator, in a warm-weather climate. Along with these images were others of the girl being abused.  The Canadian authorities did an unusual move and released six of the photos to the public with the girl's face obstructed. They wanted to find the setting of these photos in an effort to perhaps track her down.

The public reacted and identified the location. The photos were taken at Walt Disney World’s Port Orleans Resort. Angel was just eight years old at the time of the photos and, without knowing anything about her, people dubbed her “Disney girl.” With this clue, the search intensified and investigators were making headway into the identity of the young girl. As it turns out, from a different situation, the police already knew of Angel, they just didn’t know she was Disney girl.

In May of 2003, federal agents raided Michael's house after he shared an explicit chat with a fellow pedophile online. This chat was actually with a law enforcement officer. The raid uncovered a trove of child porn. Michael was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years and eight months in jail. With her adoptive father incarcerated, another family in Pittsburgh, whom she calls her dream family, adopted Angel.

After his arrest and the new information of Disney girl, authorities started to piece things together. The federal government charged Michael with additional child pornography and abuse charges for his acts on Angel.

     He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to another thirty-five to seventy years in prison. As it turns out, authorities believe Michael solely adopted her for his perverse and sick intentions of abusing and producing child pornography with her. As the details of the story unraveled, the agency did little in the way of a background check or interviews his family members, let alone any sort of exhaustive search into who they are letting adopt a child. Had they done their due diligence, perhaps they could have learned that Michael abused his own biological daughter throughout her adolescence.

      Over Memorial Day weekend in 2009, at the Fort Wilderness Campground, twenty-nine-year-old Jean struck up a conversation with a twelve-year-old girl at the campgrounds pool. A short time later he was having sex with her at a nearby laundry facility. The girl, fearful she was pregnant, didn’t tell her foster family about the rape until later in June. The only information she had about the man was a business card he gave her. The girl's family contacted police about the sexual assault. The police then set up a sting operation and contacted Jean. The police, pretending to be the girl, told Jean she wanted to meet him again at Fort Wilderness. In September, Jean showed up, as did the police. He was immediately arrested and charged with sexual battery and lewd or lascivious battery. Jean was found guilty of his charges in 2011 and currently resides in Florida state prison.

Also occurring in 2009, David of Mountlake Terrace, Washington was visiting Walt Disney World in July with a friend's fifteen-year-old son whom he was caring for. The two of them went over to the wave pool at Typhoon Lagoon. While in the pool, a lifeguard and a boy’s father witnessed David inappropriately touch more than five young boys in the pool.  Most of boys didn’t file a report with deputies but one thirteen-year-old boy's father did, and David was arrested on charges of lewd molestation. In October of 2011, he was found guilty and sentenced to 24 months in prison.

Same park, same year, same week, same outcome for a pedophile visiting Typhoon Lagoon. Robert, a fifty-one-year-old youth minister visiting from Victor, New York groped more than one young girl at the wave pool. Robert would swim up to unsuspecting young girls, as the waves would come crashing in, he would pull their bathing suits down and fondle them. Robert did this repeatedly and on multiple girls. He claimed he only accidentally collided into them. Employees witnessed him pulling his stunt on no less than five girls, as did the park’s security cameras. After complaints from a fifteen-year-old girl and her family, security and deputies were called in. Once they were able to identify him in the sea of people, he was arrested on molestation charges. The youth pastor earned himself a new title after his trip to Walt Disney World: registered sex offender.

In August of 2011, a convicted violent sex offender was arrested for lewd punching on three young girls' genital areas while he swam at Typhoon Lagoon with his wife and children; sometimes, even adults are victims. A thirty-year-old woman was the victim of groping by a nineteen-year-old man. He was charged with battery and banned from Disney for life.

The wave pools seem to challenge certain people’s moral behavior and self-control. Disney sex crimes poolside continues to surface at not only the   water parks but also resort pools. In 2012, a sixty-eight-year-old man was arrested for flashing his genitals to little girls at the Animal Kingdom Lodge pool. There are a few more stories that could be added to this part of the chapter but you get the picture here.

Unfortunately, these crimes don’t complete the stories Disney doesn’t want you to hear. There are more from the past and will be more in the future. In our ever-changing society, even the Happiest Place on Earth isn’t completely sex offender-free. As with accidents and other incidents covered in this book, these atrocities occur out of the tens of millions of visits. By and large, the two “towns” of Disney are probably safer than the towns you and I live in.

A quick sampling of the evening news reveals our local tales of woe. Stories pertaining to the corruption and crimes of our neighbors, friends and family at the hands of strangers, civic and religious leaders, teachers, politicians and law enforcement. The same acts happen everywhere, it is the unfortunate part of life. Due to Disney’s prominent role and reputation over the decades, the acts seem that much worse and unexpected, as pieces of reality seep into our fantasy.