NEED TO KNOW
- A New York woman claims she found a human fingertip in her chicken wrap ordered from a restaurant in Astoria, N.Y.
- Mary Elizabeth Smith, 43, alleges that she purchased the chicken wrap “to go” at Create Astoria on Nov. 17, 2023
- Smith says she was “permanently traumatized” by the experience and has filed a lawsuit, but the restaurant calls her claim “ludicrous”
A New York woman claims she found a human fingertip in food she purchased from a local restaurant.
Mary Elizabeth Smith, 43, of Manhattan alleges that the incident occurred on Nov. 17, 2023, after she ordered a chicken wrap “to go” at Create Astoria, a Mediterranean restaurant in Queens, according to a legal complaint obtained by PEOPLE that was filed in the New York County Supreme Court on Aug. 7. The restaurant calls her claim “impossible” and “ludicrous.”
In the complaint, Smith’s attorney, Robert Menna, states that Smith took a bite of a chicken wrap and discovered “human tissue, a fingertip” inside it.
The complaint further states that “negligence” on the part of the restaurant caused Smith to “sustain serious injuries and suffer pain, shock and mental anguish.”
“She ordered a chicken wrap, and when she bit into it, there was a piece of a finger there. Luckily, she didn’t swallow it. But it still traumatized her,” Menna said in a statement to PEOPLE.
Menna said his office sent the fingertip to a lab for testing and it was confirmed to be tissue from a human female.
He added that the restaurant, however, claims it had no female employees working there that day. Additionally, he says that Create’s insurance company, Liberty Mutual, has denied Smith’s allegations. (PEOPLE reached out to Liberty Mutual for comment on Saturday, Aug. 23, but did not receive an immediate response.)
“So we will let the court take care of it,” Menna said.
Create’s owner, Teddy Karagiannis, called the lawsuit “completely fraudulent” in a statement to PEOPLE. He added that he plans to countersue Smith “for slander.”
It’s just ludicrous,” he said, adding that food served at his restaurant goes through multiple inspection points before being served.
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“It’s impossible. It cannot happen in my style of operation,” Karagiannis added.
Karagiannis alleged to PEOPLE that Smith has declined to do DNA testing on the fingertip, which he believes would prove it did not come from one of his employees. He also speculated that Smith could have obtained the fingertip elsewhere.
Smith, meanwhile, reportedly told the New York Post that she was “permanently traumatized” by the experience, adding that she had to undergo strong antiretroviral therapy to protect against any potential exposure to deadly diseases.
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