Restaurant Employee Sentenced After Sharing Video of Himself Urinating On and Rubbing Food on Genitals

Jace Christian Hanson, 22, was sentenced on Thursday to 136 months in prison, which comes to 11 years and 4 months. "You will come back out to the community, and that's concerning," 10th Judicial District Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan told Hanson directly in court, per Law&Crime, calling him a "future danger." Hanson received the maximum sentence allowed by law.

Hanson's initial arrest and charges came in June 2024, per ABC affiliate KMBC, after the FBI received a tip that claimed he was posting videos where he showed himself urinating on food at his place of employment, the now-closed Hereford House restaurant in Leawood, Kansas.

Additional videos purportedly showed him urinating in bins of food, as well as pressing foods against his genitals and buttocks, spitting in food, and stomping on food, according to court records. NBC affiliate KSHB reports that the company stated he worked there part-time for less than a month, putting the time frame of alleged incidents from April 6 to April 23, 2024.

According to Fox 4 KC, Hanson didn't even try to deny the activities he purportedly recorded and published online under the moniker "Vandalizer."

He allegedly confessed to instances in which he urinated in Au Jus sauce and in pickle jars, while further stating that he pressed his privates to pieces of salmon, per court documents. He purportedly estimated at least 20 such instances of food contamination.

At a court hearing in August covered by the Johnson County Post, detectives detailed some of what they found when they downloaded the contents of Hanson's phone, including video footage of him urinating and spitting on the restaurant's food, urinating in a container and pouring it onto the food, and even bringing food into the restaurant's bathroom where he would place it in his underwear or rub it on his privates.

Camellia Hill, the owner of the restaurant, also took the stand, where she said that Hanson's admitted actions singlehandedly "destroyed our business." She said it was all over for the restaurant "the minute it hit the press."

The Leawood restaurant first opened in 1996 and closed its doors for good in August 2024, just three months after Hanson's initial arrest. It is part of the Hereford House women-owned restaurant chain first opened in 1957 with locations in both Kansas and Missuri.

Hill said that sales at the Leawood location dropped by 60% as word of mouth quickly spread, even before Hanson's charges were made public. She said the restaurant was almost completely empty. "We just lost the business. We were in the paper every day," she said in court.

"It was the headline on the TV and the newspapers, and everyone is asking for names of people damaged, and it was pretty hard to do business," she added.

Another location of the chain restaurant in Kansas City also had to close its doors due to the negative publicity, and this chain was neither owned by Hill nor directly impacted in any way by Hanson's actions. Additionally, Hereford House is facing an estimated 150-200 lawsuits stemming from the food contamination case.

Hill explained that the "negative press for our brand, it had a negative impact on us. We are recovering from that. It was pretty hard ... for the past year." Hill still owns a Hereford House franchise in Independence, Missouri that remains open, while there is another in Shawnee, Kansas.

The Leawood Police Department also took the stand to talk about the incredible strain on their department, as they fielded a total of 396 people submitting reports of food poisoning, with crime analyst Anna Hill saying she interviewed 131 people about it.

"They were obviously angry with our suspect, our offender. They were angry with Hereford House, angry with the police department, with the DA’s office, everyone involved," she told the Post.

Coming as a complete surprise to investigators, looking into Hanson's phone also revealed multiple videos of child sexual abuse that were allegedly sent by Hanson via the Telegram messaging app, with accompanying messages expressing his alleged desire to perform similar acts on children -- some of which were as young as newborns.

"It was the most brutal and violent child sexual abuse material that I have ever seen," said Leawood Police detective Jack Bond in court. He was asked to read out some of these alleged messages, many of which the Post said were too graphic to publish. One that was shared read, "I really want this life honestly, it’s the only thing I live for, working so I can hopefully do as much damage as I can someday."

Bond explained that in email exchanges with one individual, "there were messages citing being sexualized at a young age, discovering pornography at a young age, and then or closely to the event, being contacted by men online requesting that Mr. Hanson do things such as contaminate the food at his place of employment."

At Hanson's sentencing, Judge Ryan held up a binder containing the evidence brought against him in the case and said, "To use the term repulsive doesn't begin to cover it."

Before being sentenced, Hanson expressed remorse, apologizing to Hereford House customers, his coworkers, and his family, per Law&Crime, saying, "I would take it back if I could."