AN APPLETON, WI WOMAN WHO TRIED TO EXTORT MONEY FROM AN UPSCALE RESTAURANT BY PUTTING A RAT IN HER LUNCH HAS ENTERED NO-CONTEST PLEAS TO TWO CRIMINAL CHARGES.

The Appleton Post-Crescent reported 43year-old Debbie R. Miller was found guilty after she entered the pleas to a felony extortion charge and a misdemeanor for obstructing police.

Prosecutors said Miller planted the rat at The Seasons on April 17, 2008, and then demanded $500,000 from the owners. She threatened to alert the media.

As the restaurant doesn't even have a microwave on the premises, they immediately suspected a scam. Instead of paying, the owners turned the rat over to investigators for their insurance company. They determined it was a domestic rat that had been cooked in a microwave.

Miller was arrested three months later. The case was delayed due to hearings on Miller's competency to stand trial. Judge Dee Dyer finally ruled in October that Miller was competent to stand trial, where she pleaded no contest to the charges.

Source: The Post-Crescent, www.postcrescent.com

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