The New York Times Unknowingly Interviews Notorious Woman Once Jailed for Incident Involving a Bowl of Wendy’s Chili and a Severed Finger for a Profile on Kamala Harris

A New York Times profile of voters expressing skepticism toward Kamala Harris was derided for including a woman who stuck a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy’s chili.

The old gray lady posted a snapshot of voters’ position after Harris essentially replaced Joe Biden as the Democrat candidate against Donald Trump.

One of the respondents was a 58-year-old “registered Democrat” named Anna Ayala, who said she would vote for Trump because “the situation at the border is out of control.”

The newspaper had to retract the claims after social media revealed that this Anna Ayala had served two stints in prison, including one involving a bizarre incident in 2005 with her finger cut off.

The mother, who has a long history of prosecutions, was released from prison after serving four years for the horrific Wendy’s chili fingers case in 2005.

The bizarre scam gained worldwide attention after Ayala dropped a 1 1/2-inch piece of her ring finger into her bowl of fast-food chili.

It was revealed that Ayala’s husband, Jaime Plascencia, had purchased the figure for $100 from a co-worker who had lost it in an accident. He then took it home where Ayala had it cooked before dropping it in his meal on March 24, 2005.

Wendy’s claimed to have lost $21 million because of the false allegations. Ayala served only four years of the nine she was originally sentenced to.

In 2013, Ayala was sentenced to two additional years, this time for lying about a shooting involving her son.

The so-called “chilli finger lady” was arrested in October of that year after telling police that her son had been shot in the ankle by two men.

Her son, Guadalupe Reyes, accidentally shot himself with a gun he wasn’t supposed to have because he was on parole for a burglary conviction.

Ayala lied to keep himself from going to prison as a felon in possession of a firearm.

Reyes was also sentenced to two years in prison on the same charge.

Ayala fabricated detailed reports of two men who “shot” his 26-year-old son outside their home in San Jose, California.

Junior Reyes told them he was attacked by two men “for no reason.”

After she and her son mixed up their stories, police arrested them both in February.

Ayala was charged with aiding and abetting a crime and filing a false police report.

As a convicted felon, Ayala cannot vote in any federal election, leading the Times to issue a retraction the day the article was published.

“The Times removed a voter’s comments from an earlier version of this article after learning that the person had been convicted in an extortion scheme in which he made fraudulent statements,” they wrote.

The newspaper has since removed all mention of Ayala’s comments.

The original Times article highlighted how Harris filled the void left by her boss Joe Biden when he chose to abandon the campaign.