An Indiana DoorDash driver has been arrested after investigators said she deliberately pepper sprayed a customer's fast-food order.
Kourtney Stevenson, 29, was taken into custody on Friday (Dec. 12) and booked on charges including consumer product tampering and battery resulting in moderate bodily injury.
Police said Stevenson was working a late-night DoorDash shift in Indiana and contaminated an Arby's order moments before dropping it off.
One of the alleged victims, Mark Cardin, described the incident to CBS4 Indy, saying, "[My] wife went to the door and got the food, and brought it into the house and I still hadn't went into the kitchen—she was sitting there eating. All of a sudden she started just coughing and gasping, and she started choking and then she threw up."
The couple reviewed their doorbell footage, which allegedly showed the driver setting the bag down, taking the required delivery photo, and then spraying the food bag before walking away.
TMZ reported that DoorDash refunded the couple and permanently deactivated Stevenson's account on the app, stating it has zero tolerance for conduct that puts customer safety at risk.
Cardin said that when he tried to contact the driver, he was blocked, so he turned to social media to warn others.
"I know how powerful of a tool social media is because you see people go viral for everything, and you know, I don't want to be famous. This isn't about being famous," he said. "This is about protecting people, you know? I mean this should have never happened."
Vanderburgh County Sheriff Noah Robinson also told CBS4 Indy that this type of food tampering can be charged as a felony.
"It's possible to go to prison for this. It depends on the criminal history of the individual involved, and so it's way too soon to be discussing what kind of outcome we might be looking at," Robinson said. "But nonetheless, tampering with somebody's food and deliberately adulterating it is a felony in the state of Indiana."
A statement from the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office read, "She told detectives that she used pepper spray, not on the food, but to spray a spider she said she saw while making the delivery. At that temperature, outdoor spiders in Indiana are not active and would not be capable of crawling on exposed surfaces."
Stevenson is awaiting extradition to Indiana after she was arrested in Kentucky.