California Woman Caught Poisoning Starbucks Customers
After lacing orange juice at Starbucks with lethal amounts of rubbing alcohol, California resident Ramineh Behbehanian faces attempted murder charges. Behbehanian was caught putting two bottles of tainted orange juice back into a display case at a San Jose Starbucks location.
Concerned customers immediately told the manager, who followed Behbehanian to the parking lot to write down her license plate number, just in time for employees to notice that the two bottles she placed in the case had a toxic scent.
When firefighters made it to the scene, they found lethal dosages of isopropyl alcohol in the juices. The alcohol Behbehanian mixed into the juice was rubbing alcohol, often used in the development of explosives and in small amounts for wound care, and that should not be consumed due to its highly reactive nature that is toxic to the nervous system.
It is because of the lethal nature of the alcohol that Behbehanian faces attempted murder charges as well as felony poisoning charges, and will appear in court before the end of the week. A motive has not been established yet.
"We're immensely grateful to the vigilant customer who immediately did the right thing by notifying our store partners who immediately pulled the juice from the shelves and quickly notified the authorities," said Zack Hutson, Starbucks' spokesperson. As a result of the incident, Hutson has had the Starbucks in San Jose dispose of all of its juices from the refrigerated display and has alerted other nearby locations to carefully inspect their juice bottles.