Man charged in contamination of soft drink
Staff report
BOARDMAN — A Salem man faces a felony charge of contaminating a substance for human consumption, accused of spiking his former girlfriend’s soft drink with Visine eye drops.
Ryan M. Keller, 28, of West Seventh Street, was in the Mahoning County jail, charged with the felony and a misdemeanor domestic violence charge. He is to appear today in Mahoning County Court.
About 4 p.m. Saturday, a manager from AT&T, Boardman-Canfield Road, called police and reported that an employee saw another employee, later determined to be Keller, putting the eye drops into a soft drink. The drink belonged to Keller’s former girlfriend.
The former girlfriend said that Keller kept asking her if she was feeling OK.
When police first questioned Keller at the business, he denied knowledge but later acknowledged that he had put the eye drops in someone’s drink as a prank.
He told police that he didn’t think it was a big deal and that the workers play pranks all the time.
The bottle of eye drops advises, “If ingested, contact a poison control center right away,” a police report said.
The victim told police that she suffered from stomach pain; she wasn’t sure if it was nerves or because of the drink. She declined medical attention.