DA: Fayetteville employee accused of poisoning cheese threatened to 'shoot up' restaurant

Surveillance video from the restaurant showed Ricky Lee Adami, 59, of the 3100 block of Imperial Drive, pulling what authorities believe to be rat poison out of his pocket and putting it in the cheese shredder machine.

John Geraffo, the owner of the restaurant, said the substance is being analyzed.

“Picture opening up a tub of cottage cheese and seeing a bunch of black things in it. I mean, you know something’s in there, you know something’s wrong, you’re not going to eat that and my manager found our cheese obviously tainted,” Geraffo said.

Geraffo said he immediately threw out thousands of dollars’ worth of open products that Adami could have had access to. He’s confident nothing that could have been tainted made it to any of his customers.

Geraffo said he could have just fired Adami and thrown out the tainted cheese, but he believes he did the right thing by reporting him so that other potential employers know what he’s allegedly capable of doing.

"He went to jail. I hope he's in jail for a while now and we'll try to do the best we can," he said.

Adami is charged with distributing food containing noxious or deleterious material and is being held at the Cumberland County Detention Center under $100,000 bond.

He requested a court appointed attorney during his first appearance Thursday afternoon, when District Attorney Billy West successfully argued to have Adami's bond increased, saying he did more than just taint cheese.

"He had also made additional threats that he would come back and shoot up the business. Apparently, there was some problem between him and his employer there," West said.

Geraffo said the incident involving the tainted cheese happened Friday and that Adami was under the influence when he came to work.

"According to the detectives, he had taken some pills and heroin that day. He came ready to do something bad," Geraffo said.

Since then, the health department has inspected the pizzeria and given the green light for the restaurant to continue operating.

"Primo Pizza has been deemed safe for food consumption. The restaurant has been thoroughly inspected. All cooking utensils and other equipment was properly washed and sanitized," said Deputy Health Director and Interim Environmental Health Director Rod Jenkins in a statement.