A Rhode Island public employee was charged Monday with poisoning a co-worker by putting windshield wiper fluid in a Gatorade bottle.
Alessio D’Andrea, 29, was hit with one count of felony poisoning, the Boston Globe reported. D’Andrea worked for the town of North Providence but was placed on unpaid suspension shortly after the incident.
The victim in the case has not been publicly identified. They spent about 36 hours in a local hospital and continue to feel the effects of the poison, according to local CBS affiliate WPRI. The person had methanol in their system, the very poisonous main ingredient in wiper fluid.
Cops said two other North Providence employees witnessed D’Andrea empty a Gatorade bottle, put wiper fluid inside and then put the bottle back in the office fridge in late June, WPRI reported. The group allegedly even commented on how much it looked like Gatorade.
After the victim was hospitalized, officials and town employees began describing the incident as a prank gone wrong, though even small amounts of wiper fluid can be deadly.
“It was a joke that went bad,” Mayor Charles Lombardi told the Globe earlier in July.
D’Andrea is also facing unrelated federal charges that he has pleaded not guilty to. In July 2023, he was accused of importing a gun part to convert a semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic machine gun.
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