New York Times unwittingly interviews notorious woman once jailed over incident involving bowl of Wendy's chili and severed finger for profile on Kamala Harris
- The Times was profiling voters' takes on the race between Trump and Harris
- One person profiled was Anna Ayala, a 58-year-old Democrat voting for Trump
- Ayala is a convicted felon who once put a severed finger in a Wendy's chili bowl
A New York Times profile of voters claiming skepticism toward Kamala Harris was mocked for including a woman who planted a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili.
The Old Gray Lady published a snapshot of where voters were after Harris essentially replaced Joe Biden as the Democrat nominee against Donald Trump.
One of the people they interviewed was a 58-year-old 'registered Democrat' named Anna Ayala, who said she would vote for Trump because 'the border situation is out of control.'
The paper had to retract these claims after social media uncovered that this Anna Ayala did two prison stints, including one involving a bizarre 2005 incident with the severed finger.
The mother, who has a long history of filing lawsuits, was released from prison after serving four years for the gruesome Wendy's chili finger case in 2005.
The New York Times was mocked for interviewing Anna Ayala without realizing she served four years in prison for planting a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili
The bizarre scam gathered worldwide attention after Ayala dropped the 1 1/2 inch section of ring finger in her bowl of fast-food chili.
It was revealed Ayala's husband, Jaime Plascencia, had bought the digit for $100 from a co-worker who lost it in an accident. He then took it home where Ayala cooked it before depositing it in her meal on March 24, 2005.
Wendy's claimed they lost $21 million in business because of the bogus allegations. Ayala only served four years of the nine she'd been originally sentenced to.
In 2013, Ayala was sentenced for two more years, this time for lying about a shooting involving her son.
The so-called Chili Finger Lady was arrested in October of that year after she told police that her son had been shot in the ankle by two men.
Her son, Guadalupe Reyes, accidentally shot himself with a gun he wasn't supposed to have, because he was on parole for a felony burglary conviction.
Ayala lied to prevent him from going to prison as a felon in possession of a firearm.
Reyes also received two years in prison for that very charge.
The Old Gray Lady published a snapshot of where voters were after Harris essentially replaced Joe Biden as the Democrat nominee against Donald Trump
The paper had to retract these claims after social media uncovered that this Anna Ayala did two prison stints, including one involving the bizarre 2005 incident
Ayala invented detailed reports of two men who 'shot' her 26-year-old son outside their home in San Jose, California.
Junior Reyes told them that he had been attacked by a pair of men for 'for no rhyme or reason.'
After she and her son got their tales mixed up, police arrested them both in February.
Ayala was charged with being an accessory to a felony and filing a false police report.
As a convicted felon, Ayala cannot vote in any federal election, which led to the Times releasing a retraction the day the story was published.
'The Times removed comments from one voter in an earlier version of this article after learning that the person had been convicted in an extortion scheme in which she made fraudulent claims,' they wrote.
The paper has since deleted all mention of Ayala's comments.
The original Times story noted how Harris had closed the gap that her boss Joe Biden had left when he chose to drop out of the campaign.
