A McDonald‘s franchisee has agreed to pay a Pennsylvania girl $4.4 million to settle her lawsuit after being sexually assaulted by her manager who was a registered sex offender, ABC News reported.
The victim started her job at the Bethel Park restaurant in October 2020 and sometime after that, Walter Garner, 41, made sexual comments and touched the victim inappropriately, according to the lawsuit . obtained by ABC News. Garner raped the victim in the restaurant’s bathroom in mid-February, 2021, the records show.
“How is it that a convicted, registered sex offender is permitted to be hired to manage 14- to 17-year-old girls at a McDonald’s?” Alan Perer, the victim’s lawyer, said during a news conference Monday morning at his offices in downtown Pittsburgh. “The facts of our case are horrific.”
The victim and her parents sued McDonald’s and Rice Enterprises in September 2021, alleging that she was harassed and raped by Garner. In the lawsuit the victim claims that the defendants knew about it and that they did nothing to stop it.
Perer said Monday that it was in the best interests of the victim to settle the case because he did not want to put her through a trial.
“There is no amount of compensation to account for lost innocence and trauma,” Perer said.
Garner pleaded guilty in 2021 to statutory sexual assault, indecent assault and other charges for the McDonald’s assault and received a 10-year prison sentence.
In a statement to USA TODAY Rice Enterprises says that all of their employees undergo safe and respectful workplace training upon hire, and expanded their required training to be bi-annual, In addition, the company plans to to add enhanced security measures at its restaurants.
“As soon as we were made aware of the complaint against Garner in 2021, we terminated his employment and offered our full support to the impacted employees and law enforcement investigating this case,” Rice Enterprises said in the statement. “Since then, we’ve redoubled our efforts to ensure a positive and respectful experience for all employees in our restaurants, and our organization maintains a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any kind.”
McDonald’s USA commented on the incident.
“The events that took place in this case are deeply troubling. Everyone working under the Arches deserves to feel safe and respected when they come to work, and sexual harassment or violence of any kind is completely unacceptable. We’re committed to providing franchisees with the resources they need to create a safe working environment in their restaurants – including training around harassment prevention as part of McDonald’s Global Brand Standards.” McDonald’s USA said in a statement to USA TODAY.
Victim not the only one that reported abuse
According to a report by WPIX, Perer said multiple underage girls working at the restaurant made complaints to a manager about Garner’s inappropriate touching and advances, but no disciplinary action was taken.
“They were looking at surveillance,” Perer told WPIX. “They saw he was trying to grab and fondle her in the [restaurant],”
Perer said Garner wasn’t disciplined even after that and the abuse ramped up. According to the court documents, Garner followed the victim into the bathroom and raped her. He later allegedly tried to have sex with her inside the kid’s play area.
Another teen said Garner was trying to make advances toward her. When she told her mother, the school was contacted. The police department was then called and the investigation started.
“He remained there and continued his abuse and harassment until he was arrested. Then they fired him,” Perer said.
The owner of the franchise told WPIX they are fully cooperating with police.
“The allegations made in the lawsuit are deeply disturbing – my organization has no tolerance for sexual harassment, and we terminated the employee in question as soon as we learned about a complaint against him. While all of our employees undergo safe and respectful workplace training upon hire, we’ve recently expanded our training to be bi-annual, in addition to adding enhanced security measures at our restaurants. We have offered our full support to the impacted employee and are fully cooperating with the police investigation into these allegations,” the statement read.
Garner, 44, had served prison time and was listed on the Megan’s Law website for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.