Former restaurant worker pleads not guilty to contaminating food, child sexual exploitation in Kansas

The 22-year-old former Hereford House employee accused of contaminating food at the restaurant’s former Leawood, Kansas, location waived a preliminary hearing on Tuesday allowing the case against him to move forward to trial.

Jace Christian Hanson appeared in Johnson County District Court Tuesday morning alongside his attorney, Jeff Gedbaw, where they waived the hearing, where prosecutors would have presented evidence and argued there was enough evidence for the case to go to trial.

After asking Hanson if he understood and agreed, Johnson County Judge T. Kelly Ryan arraigned Hanson on all 33 charges in the complaint.

During his arraignment, Hanson pleaded not guilty to 22 counts of criminal threat for allegedly contaminating food, one count of criminal damage and 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a child for allegedly possessing child sexual abuse materials. All of the charges are felonies.

Gedbaw then asked for a 60-day continuance, which was granted, to negotiate a resolution. Hanson, who is being held on a $500,000 bond, was ordered to appear in court on Dec. 6.

Online videos traced to Hanson

Authorities became aware of the possible contaminated food after Hanson allegedly posted videos online under the pseudonym “Vandalizer” that showed a man urinating in restaurant-style food bins and rubbing food on his buttocks and genitals.

The FBI traced the videos to Hanson’s cellphone and contacted Leawood police. Detectives went to the restaurant 5001 Town Center Drive in Leawood’s Town Center Plaza on April 25 and spoke to the manager. They then asked Hanson, who was working, if he knew of any food contamination.

”I’ll just be straight up, yeah,” said Hanson, who worked at the restaurant part-time, according to the court documents. He added that he’d “just been doing stupid s—t.”

Hanson was arrested that afternoon and booked into Johnson County jail. According to court documents, he allegedly told investigators that he started contaminating food because he didn’t enjoy the job at first.

Hanson allegedly also said he had been in contact with men online using dating apps. They had made requests for him to make videos and post them online, according to court documents.

Hanson was charged the next day with only one count of criminal threat for allegedly contaminating food.

When the Johnson County District Attorney’s office announced the charges a few days later, it along with Leawood police asked customers who fell ill after eating at the restaurant between March 26 and April 25 to contact Leawood police.

More than 380 people who had eaten at the restaurant contacted police, including some who fell ill afterward.

In June, the district attorney’s office filed additional charges against Hanson, which alleged the contamination took place between April 1 and 23.

The new charges included the 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a child. The charges alleged that Hanson unlawfully possessed visual depictions of a child under the age of 18 “engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”

During a hearing after the new charges were filed, Assistant District Attorney Melinda Parrish’s voice cracked when she told the court that not only was there possession, but evidence of a chat history among Hanson and other users online about wanting to sexually exploit infants and children calling it, “shocking to the conscience (and) sadistic behavior.”

Customers sue after falling ill

In the months that followed, more than 60 customers filed 32 lawsuits against the Hereford House Restaurant Company of Kansas Inc., contending they fell ill after eating at the Leawood restaurant during the period Hanson worked there.

The suits contend that Hereford House was negligent and breached an implied warranty that its food would be safe. They also include a strict liability claim, alleging that the contaminated food was a defective product that the restaurant served to customers.

In answers to the lawsuits, Hereford House has denied being negligent and contends it did not know Hanson was allegedly contaminating food until he was arrested on April 25.

Hereford House also contends that the alleged contamination resulted from Hanson’s alleged criminal conduct, which was outside his scope of employment.

In early August, Hereford House shut down its Leawood restaurant after the much-publicized incident led to financial problems.

“As financial strains caused by recent events continue, we have made the very difficult decision to close the Hereford House Leawood,” Hereford House said in a statement released to the media.

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