Deli Worker Charged With Lacing Bean Dip With Methamphetamine: Reports

Cassandra Medina-Hernandez, 38, of Albany, was arrested on Sept. 25 and was charged. Marion County Sheriff's Office

A deli worker in Oregon was arrested and charged with lacing bean dip with methamphetamine, according to reports.

The dip was eaten by at least two of her co-workers, leading to one being hospitalized, reported OregonLive.

Cassandra Medina-Hernandez, 38, of Albany, was arrested on Sept. 25 and was charged with unlawful delivery of methamphetamine, reckless endangerment, and causing another person to take a controlled substance, KOMO reported.

According to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, an investigation was launched on Sept. 9 when an employee at a Thriftway in Jefferson said she began to feel sick after eating bean dip provided by Medina-Hernandez.

The employee was taken to the hospital and was told that the dip may have contained meth.

The Thriftway in Jefferson, Oregon, located on Old Pacific Highway. Google Street View

“The victim, an employee at Jefferson Thriftway on Old Pacific Highway in Jefferson, told deputies she was at work and began feeling ill after eating bean dip she received from another employee who was working in the deli,” the sheriff’s office said, reported KOMO.

A subsequent investigation found that “at least one other employee had consumed bean dip from the same dish that was believed to have been contaminated,” the office said.

Management at the Thriftway is cooperating with investigations, the report said.

“At this time, there is no reason to believe customers of the business were served contaminated food,” the office wrote.

According to OregonLive, surveillance footage showed Medina-Hernandez allegedly removing something from inside her clothing was her back was turned toward the camera. She then went and crouched behind a microwave and wiped her nose when she stood up.

The woman is then accused of getting a small paper dish and placing the bean dip on the dish. The item she got from her clothing was also on the plate, the report said.

She allowed two store employees to eat from the dish, and she also ate some of the dip, police said.

Medina-Hernandez told an arresting deputy that she didn’t want to speak without an attorney and turned herself into officials in Linn County, where she lives.

The office said that no other arrests are likely in the case.

Facts About Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).

A woman suspected of smuggling methamphetamine inside her vehicle’s gas tank on July 14, 2018. U.S. Customs and Border Protection

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend. Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.