DOCUMENT: College, Crime

Collegian Facing Prison For Visine Prank

Suspect was inspired by comedy “Wedding Crashers”

"Wedding Crashers"

View Document

"Wedding Crashers" Plot

FEBRUARY 10--Inspired by a scene from the movie “Wedding Crashers,” a Wisconsin college student repeatedly placed Visine eye drops in a water bottle used by her roommate, who was sickened by the tainted liquid, police charge.

Luciana Reichel, 22, was charged last month with a felony count of placing foreign objects in edibles. Reichel, pictured at right, is scheduled for an initial Circuit Court appearance on March 7.

According to a criminal complaint, on “numerous occasions” late last year Reichel placed Visine in a quart-sized water bottle used by Brianna Charapata, her 20-year-old roommate at a University of Wisconsin Oshkosh dorm. As a result of ingesting the tainted water, Charapata told cops, “she began feeling nauseated, suffered from diarrhea, loss of appetite and was otherwise very tired for no apparent reason.”

Charapata, who said that her doctor was unable to explain the cause of her symptoms, recalled having to leave an October 18 marketing exam when she suddenly became ill.

Reichel’s Visine scheme ended after she told another student about the prank, and that classmate, Laura Gallas, informed Charapata. Gallas told police that Reichel laughed when describing the Visine stunt “because the eye drops…had been making [Charapata] sick.” After seeing this, Gallas added, Reichel said she “decided to add more to her water bottle a few days later and the same results happened.”

When confronted by cops, Reichel reportedly confessed to the Visine stunt, claiming “she got the idea from watching the movie ‘The Wedding Crashers’ where an actor in the movie put eye drops in someone’s drink and it made that person sick.” In the 2005 comedy, actor Owen Wilson’s character places eye drops in the wine of a rival, played by Bradley Cooper, who becomes violently ill.

If convicted of the tampering charge, Reichel, once a star swimmer on the university’s swim team, faces a maximum of 3-1/2 years in prison. (3 pages)

Comments (19)

good thing she's not a scarface fan.
Definitely cute! Reminds me of Danny Glover's daughter in Lethal Weapon. Too bad she's an idiot!
What a ***
this is terrible, people shoould no better than " pranking" somone cuz the prank can turn deadly. how many stories out there are of people being pranked and then they gett seriously hurt or killed. if we go dead from the kneck up when making "pranks" like this girl did then well something is wrong. if her parents say she is a good kid and didnt know better then to the parents um opk then y the hell did she do that if she knew better and was a good kid, if found it was my roomy doing then i would be so pissed at my roomy.
Attend remedial spelling and grammar classes, please.
To the racist who commented earlier. No Pell grant necessary. Free ride for swimming. Obviously she worked very hard and is a great competitor. Your just jealous because your kid had a higher SAT and GPA and had to pay a inflated full fare to cover her college expenses as well.
I had no idea how dangerous this stuff can be: http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/visine.asp
Damn, you're right. That is some serious stuff.
Newsflash.... Here in the U.S. they removed the active ingredient (tetrahydrozaline) that causes the desired results years ago. As a former cocktail waitress I know... Unless she bought the Visene in Canada, this story is BOGUS. Watch the movie "Waiting", you will learn the cardinal rule #1 which is DO NOT piss off your server!
Newsflash....you are wrong. I'm looking at my Visine bought right here in the US of A and I assure you, it's in there.
You must be thinking of something else. Check visine.com -- it's still in there.
Many generic eyedrops available in the USA still contain tetrahydrozoline, check your local pharmacy. Tetrahydrozoline poisoning can be fatal: (from wikipedia): A common urban legend is that a few drops of Visine in an unsuspecting victim's drink will cause a harmless bout of diarrhea. This will not produce diarrhea, but oral administration of Visine can induce dangerous side effects related to Visine's ingredient tetrahydrozoline hydrochloride such as: * Dangerously low body temperature (hypothermia) * Blurred vision * Nausea and vomiting * Difficulty in breathing or even a complete halt in breathing * Elevating (hypertension) then dropping (hypotension) blood pressure * Possible coma * Seizures and tremors Pfizer recommends that anyone ingesting Visine get medical attention or contact a poison control center immediately
I'll bet she's an affirmative action student, on a PELL grant. Any takers?
Teabaggers first reaction is always race.
Sorry, I never wager with reflexive racists. And before you make another baseless assumption, I am a conservative.middle-aged white guy. [Fortunately, your level of mindless bias is not an attribute of most "ordinary Americans."]
This is a page directly ripped out of the first edition of the Anarchists Cookbook. Seriously, people have known about this for 30+ years now, "Wedding Crashers" are not the founding fathers of this one..And last I recall (20 years ago, give or take), visine remade its formula so it wouldn't do what she described as her symptoms; so the chances are it was a different brand.
That's a good one. "Nothings funnier than poisoning somebody". No kidding, huh! Hopefully we won't hear the crap like "Aw. She's young. She didn't know better." It frustrates me when people act like an adult in their 20's just doesn't know any better. Its not true at all. She knew what she was doing, still blamed it on a movie, (puhleeeeeze). Movies are make-believe. Fantasy. She doesn't need our excuses too, she has enough of her own. She's lucky the girl didn't die. Whatta knucklehead.
kinda cute, swimmer's body, she's going to be popular in jail
Nothing funnier than poisoning someone. I wonder what other movies have inspired this dingbat.