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Anna Ayala has pleaded guilty to charges she planted a human finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili as part of a scheme to defraud the fast food chain. The deal was reached this morning in a San Jose courthouse. Ayala also pleaded guilty to a unrelated charge that she defrauded a San Jose woman in a mobile home sale. Ayala's husband, Jaime Plascencia, is also expected to plead guilty. But discussions regarding that deal haven't been completed yet. Plascencia and Ayala had been charged with two felony charges in connection with the Wendy's case: conspiracy to file a false...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A man who lost part of his finger in a workplace accident was the source of the fingertip used in an alleged scam against Wendy's restaurants, and gave it away to settle a debt, his mother said. "My son is the victim in this," Brenda Shouey said in an interview published in Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle. "I believe he got caught in something, and he didn't understand what was going on." Anna Ayala, 39, was arrested April 21 at her Las Vegas home on suspicion of attempted grand theft for allegedly costing Wendy's millions of dollars...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The finger that a woman claimed she found in a bowl of Wendy's chili was severed in the tailgate of a truck during a work accident, an employee of an asphalt company said. Pat Hogue, an estimator with a Las Vegas asphalt maintenance company, told the San Francisco Chronicle for a story in Sunday's editions that a man he was working with lost the tip of his finger on a job five months ago. Both men were working with James Plascencia, the husband of Anna Ayala - the Las Vegas woman who claimed she found the...

The Las Vegas man whose severed fingertip ended up in a cup of Wendy's chili gave his mangled digit to a co-worker to settle a $50 debt -- but had no idea it would be used in an alleged scheme to swindle the fast-food chain, the man's mother said Tuesday. San Jose police have refused to name the man whose finger they believe ended up in the chili. But the man's mother, reached by The Chronicle on Tuesday, said the finger belonged to her 36-year-old son, Brian Paul Rossiter of Las Vegas. "My son is the victim in this,'' Rossiter's...

Digit apparently belonged to co-worker of accuser's husbandSAN JOSE, Calif. - Police say the finger that a woman found in a bowl of chili came from an associate of her husband’s who lost the digit in an industrial accident.

San Jose police investigating the origin of a finger they say was planted in a bowl of Wendy's chili said Tuesday that they were receiving assistance from Mexican law enforcement officials. On Tuesday, KGO Channel 7 reported that Mexican police had searched a ranch north of Guadalajara on Monday that belonged to relatives of the husband of Anna Ayala, the 39-year-old Las Vegas woman in jail accused of planting the finger in her chili. San Jose police spokesman Enrique Garcia confirmed they were receiving cooperation from Mexican authorities but did not say which agencies were assisting or what help they...

South Texas native has sued, been sued many times before SAN JOSE, Calif. - Anna Ayala grew up in a dirt-poor Texas town not far from the Rio Grande. She was the baby of an extended family of 14 children. She trained horses and painted. She had two children of her own and followed her sister west to San Jose, yearning for a better life. She lived in relative obscurity. Then, on March 22, she went to Wendy's for a bowl of chili. When she claimed she bit into a tip of a human finger that day, the 39-year-old daughter...

Police said a woman paid $11,000 to Ayala toward the purchase of a mobile home. The home was owned by Ayala's live-in boyfriend, and days after the woman moved in she was told to move out because the home loan was in default, a police report said. Ayala since had moved to Las Vegas and refused to return the woman's money, the report said. SAN JOSE, Calif.-- High-tech testing and old-fashioned police work convinced San Jose police that a Las Vegas woman who claimed to have found a finger in her Wendy's chili was full of beans. __________________ Andy Diaz,...