- Elizar Ravelo was charged with felony battery and accused of slapping hot coffee at a McDonald's employee.
- A shift manager said Ravelo was upset because he was overcharged by a penny.
A man in Florida was charged after he was seen flinging a cup of hot coffee at a McDonald's employee while picking up his food at a Miami Springs drive-thru.
Elizar Ravelo, 64, was charged with felony battery after an incident at a McDonald's drive-thru on August 25, according to a Tuesday statement from the Miami Springs Police Department.
The statement, posted to the police department's Instagram page, included surveillance footage from the restaurant.
Ravelo got into a heated argument with the branch's drive-thru window staff over the amount he was being charged, per the police department. When Ravelo pulled up to collect his food, the restaurant manager told Ravelo that he wouldn't be allowed back at the outlet if he continued to treat her staff poorly.
That was when Ravelo started threatening to throw coffee at the manager, per the police department's statement.
In the surveillance footage, Ravelo can be seen appearing to smack the coffee cup at the staff member when she was handing it over to him.
Nayib Garcia, the shift manager for the McDonald's branch, told Miami television station Local 10 that Ravelo was a regular customer. Garcia added that Ravelo seemed to be upset that he was being overcharged by one cent.
"What the rest of the crew told me, it was over a penny," Garcia told Local 10.
Stephanie Restuccia, the manager who was scalded, spoke to South Florida television station NBC6 about the incident.
"As soon as I pulled out the coffee to give it to him, he smashed the coffee, and like, coffee went everywhere, it burned my arm from here to here, so I was like, ok, now what happens?" Restuccia said.
The hot coffee scalded Restuccia's right arm and chest area, leaving red burn marks on her skin, per the Miami Springs Police Department's statement.
Ravelo was released on a $5,000 bond on Tuesday and will be arraigned on November 1, per court records seen by Insider.
Representatives for McDonald's did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.