The strip search phone call scam was a series of incidents, mostly occurring in rural areas of the United States, that extended over a period of at least ten years, starting in 1994. The incidents involved a man calling a restaurant or grocery store, claiming to be a police officer, and then convincing managers to conduct strip searches of employees (or, in at least two known cases, a customer), and to perform other bizarre and humiliating acts on behalf of "the police". The calls were most often made to fast-food restaurants in small towns.
More than 70 such phone calls were reported in 30 U.S. states.[1] A 2004 incident in Mount Washington, Kentucky led to the arrest of David Richard Stewart, a resident of Florida. Stewart was acquitted of all charges in the Mount Washington case despite phone cards linked to some of the calls being found in his residence, and video of a man co-workers identified as Stewart purchasing the cards. He was suspected of, but never charged with, having made other, similar scam calls.[1][2] Police reported that the scam calls ended after Stewart's arrest.[3]
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