“My son is the victim in this,” said Rossiter’s mother Brenda Shouey in a telephone interview from her home in Pennsylvania. “I think he got caught in something and didn’t understand what was going on.”

Rossiter lost part of his finger when his gloved hand was caught in a mechanical truck jack at a Las Vegas road construction company in December where he worked with James Plascencia, husband of Anna Ayala, the woman who was accused of getting the tip of her finger in Wendy’s cup of having stuck chili.

Ayala claims she bit a 1 1/2 inch fingertip while eating chili at a fast food restaurant in San Jose on March 22. She was arrested a month later for attempted grand theft in allegedly attempting to knock down Wendy’s International Inc. for a financial settlement. Her husband was arrested earlier this month on charges of not paying child support in a previous relationship.

San Jose police announced last week that they had scientifically confirmed that the finger Ayala claimed to have chewed was from a Plascencia employee, but they have refused to identify it because of the investigation cooperates.

Shouey said her son was desperate for cash when he gave his finger away.

“He had a money problem. He owed this character $ 50, James,” Shouey said.

The mother accused Plascencia of chasing her injured son, who was unable to work after the accident and his invalids checks were lost in the mail while moving. She said Rossiter was laid on the floor for weeks after undergoing reconstructive surgery on his mutilated hand.

While the finger chili poop made headlines even in her rural western Pennsylvania town, Shouey said she didn’t learn of her son’s involvement until Monday night when he alerted her by calling her and saying, “Mom, you know , what’s happened?”

“The last time he said something like this to me was 9/11,” Shouey said.

Rossiter hadn’t even told about it to his father James Rossiter, who lives in Florida and is divorced.

“Oh my God!” said the father when contacted by The Chronicle, saying he never imagined that his son’s severed digit was Wendy’s finger.

He said he knew his son suffered a finger injury but did not contact him in the months following the accident.

“That’s pretty wild,” he added.

The man’s mother declined to give details of how the finger was kept, the nature of her son’s debt, or whether Rossiter was told why Plascencia supposedly wanted the finger. She said her son was holding back after undergoing extensive police interrogation on the case.

“My son is a happy guy. He thought it was cute to show the severed finger,” Shouey said. “It’s like a man’s thing. If a woman’s finger was severed, she wouldn’t show it to anyone. But he would show it to the girls in the office if they asked. ”

While Ayala and Plascencia were arrested, Shouey said their son appeared to have convinced police that he had nothing to do with the alleged finger fraud.

“He originally thought he was going to get into big trouble,” Shouey said. But after doing polygraph tests and questioning investigators for four hours, “it appears from his interpretation that the police believe him,” added the mother.

Ayala, 39, was sentenced to death on the 21st. She remains in jail in Santa Clara County and is on trial today to see her attorney lower her bail by $ 500,000.

Wendy officials said bad publicity over her claim cost the chain millions in lost sales.

Plascencia, 43, was arrested on May 4 at his Lamb Asphalt Maintenance construction site, the same day investigators received a lead on a man who may have lost a finger in an accident at work. The tip came through a Wendy’s hotline that offered a $ 100,000 reward for information on how the finger got into his chili.

Lamb President Mike Casey said he gave the tip that day after compiling the arrest of Ayala’s husband at the company and the colleague who lost his finger there three months earlier.

The Lamb paving company office managers giggled at media attention Tuesday and raised both hands to show reporters all 10 digits.

Plascencia is awaiting extradition from Las Vegas to California, where he is being jailed for failure to pay child support and identity theft, assuming his young son’s name and social security number, on a crime allegedly to avoid having his wages seized for the child support in a previous relationship.

Police have said Plascencia is likely to face charges in the Wendy’s case and will not rule out further arrests.

Without identifying Rossiter, San Jose police spokesman Enrique Garcia affirmed Tuesday that the man who lost the finger “is cooperating with us and helping us with the investigation.”

However, Garcia said that once police forward their reports to the Santa Clara County District Attorney, it will be up to the prosecutor to decide whether anyone else will be charged.

At the Las Vegas trailer park where Rossiter lived until February, residents who knew he’d lost the finger were surprised to learn he’d ended up in the bizarre chili saga.

“I know he smashed his hand in one of the construction vehicles,” said Dan Gelzaines. “He showed me. It looked like this, ”Gelzaines said, holding up his hand to show that an index finger was missing its tip from his own carpenter accident.

While Gelzaines initially said it was really strange to learn that his old neighbor’s lost finger was that finger, Gelzaines added, “But nothing really surprises me anymore.”

Gelzaines said he believed Ayala’s husband should be held accountable if he actually used Rossiter’s finger in an attempt to cheat.

Rossiter left the Kensington Community trailer park across from Nellis Air Force Base after the friend he was living with was evicted for having vicious dogs that mauled a neighbor’s pooch.

“I listened to this story on the news. I’m surprised that someone would go this extreme to get money,” said trailer park manager Terri Richey, who had also not heard of Rossiter’s connection to Wendy’s story. “But the people are funny. You will do anything. This is Vegas after all. ”