Chuck E. Cheese Mascot Arrested While on the Job in Florida
A Chuck E. Cheese employee has been arrested while dressed as the mouse character.
Florida police arrested 41-year-old Jermel Jones while he was working July 23 after he allegedly stole a customer’s credit card the month before and used it for multiple purchases totaling $105.57 throughout the month of July, according to a police report obtained by E! News.
The owner of the debit card—who had visited the Chuck E. Cheese location for her daughter’s birthday party on June 28—noticed fraudulent charges on her card “from establishments she did not shop at,” with her flagging transactions at 1Smoke Shop, Whataburger, Circle K, Time Saver and more shops. She then allegedly visited one of the locations, obtained footage of one of the purchases and “immediately recognized the suspect as an employee at Chuck E. Cheese,” per the docs.
After officer Jarrett Cruz of the Tallahassee Police Department was dispatched to the children’s pizza place and confirmed Jones was on duty, he approached the employee, who was wearing the mouse costume.
“As I approached Jones, I grabbed his right arm while giving the verbal instruction, ‘Chuck E, come with me Chuck E,’” the report stated. “Jones immediately started tensing up locking both of his arms forward in front of his chest and attempted to pull away from my grip on his right arm.”
After the policeman informed Jones he was being detained, Cruz noted that the mouse was placed “into double locked handcuffs and escorted to my marked patrol car,” according to the doc.
Jones denied having anyone’s credit cards, saying he didn’t know anything about making purchases at a meat market or smoke shop. When police searched his body, Jones informed officers he found a credit card that day but told them, “I never used it.” Authorities then found a receipt allegedly matching one of the fraudulent purchases, per the report.
Following the arrest, Jones was charged with felony counts of credit card theft, criminal use of personal identification information (such as bank information) and fraudulent use of a credit card over 2 times/over $100.00.
In response to the situation, which also circulated in photos on social media, Chuck E. Cheese said it has addressed the situation internally.
“We are aware of an incident involving a part-time employee arrested at our Tallahassee location on Wednesday, July 23,” the company said in a July 24 statement to E! News. “We have taken the appropriate action concerning the subject employee.”
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