Jacqueline Rose Rowland, 20, claims to have been too busy to notice employee Jon McQuater, 20, allegedly spit on a sandwich before she handed it to Oakland County Sheriff’s Deputy Stephen Clark in June 2004, but the current Oxford Burger King manager will soon face a felony charge of food tampering in Oakland County Circuit Court April 18.
During the April 5 preliminary exam in Rochester Hills 52-3 District Court, both Rowland and McQuater stood before Chief Judge Julie Nicholson on charges of felony food tampering. Each faces one count of placing a harmful object or substance in food; furnishing food containing harmful object or substance. The crime is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
Rowland was bound over for trial in circuit court, while McQuater is still awaiting forensic testing, ordered by the judge in December 2004, to determine if he’s mentally capable of participating in court proceedings on both the food tampering charge and a September 2004 arson charge.
While Rowland is free on personal bond and still a manager at the Oxford Burger King, according to Deputy Clark, McQuater will be held at a Caro mental health facility until the forensic competency testing is complete.
?(Rowland) told the judge she was too busy to notice (what McQuater was doing), but I was the only customer in there at the time,? said Deputy Clark. ‘And the witness said what they saw.?
As for McQuater, Clark said, ‘Those tests should have already been done. They were ordered in December, and I can’t understand why his attorney didn’t make sure they were done.?