Inside an Epic Universe gift shop just after Christmas, Jacksonville mom Nikki Daou sensed her special needs daughter was on the verge of a meltdown.

The little girl, who is severely autistic, clutched a $16 Mario Brother keychain. Daou jumped into action — she and her daughter went outside, the child still holding the knick-knack, to calm down by the store’s entrance. Her husband ripped off the barcode price tag and stood in line to buy it along the rest of their souvenirs.

What happened next made her feel like a criminal, Daou said.

A plainclothes Universal security officer accused Daou of shoplifting and Daou was later interrogated for about 30 minutes in a private security office. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office was called in. Then Daou and her family were booted from the park and given a one-year trespass ban from Universal theme parks.

Three days later, Daou received a letter from a Universal attorney warning she faces a civil claim against her and threatened possible criminal action for retail theft. The letter demanded Daou send $200 to a law office in New York.

But the situation quickly escalated further because Daou works as a litigation paralegal for Morgan & Morgan, a powerful attorney firm with deep roots in Orlando.

This week, Daou’s boss Rick Block, who is now her lawyer, sent his own demand letter to Universal asking for the trespass to be revoked and Universal make a sizable donation to a charity helping people with autism. Block also wants Universal to pay his growing legal bill representing Daou which Block said he planned to donate to charity as well.

“The Daous aren’t asking for anything for them,” Block said, calling it “just beyond abhorrent” for Universal to threaten the family since there is no intent behind the alleged theft, so Universal has no legal claims against her.

When asked if he was going to sue Universal, Block said, “I don’t know what we’re going to do. The first thing we’re going to do is listen.”

“To their credit” a Universal litigation attorney reached out and responded to Block’s lengthy letter expressing his anger about how Daou family was treated. Universal and Morgan & Morgan are going to talk this coming week, Block said. 

Universal did not respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon for this story.

The misunderstanding over a keychain raises deeper questions about how Universal responds to situations with people with disabilities and whether theme park employees are properly trained to work with visitors with autism, Daou and Block said.

Daou and her husband traveled to Orlando to celebrate their daughter’s 7th birthday.

The girl requires full-time support and full-support supervision. She struggles to communicate, often requiring a device to talk. She repeats the same words over and over. She missed Kindergarten this year so she is being homeschooled and continuing to get therapy that began at age 2. When she gets overstimulated, she can suffer  a meltdown, hitting her head on the floor, flapping her arms, out of control.

In other ways, she is like any other kid — she likes the thrill of roller coasters and going to water parks.

Throwing a birthday party didn’t make sense since  the child doesn’t have friends, Daou said.

The little girl’s autism makes her hyperfixated on things, and she is infatuated with everything Mario.

“She’s got Mario pajamas, she’s got Mario’s slippers,” Daou said. “She’s got all the toys and we bought her all the figurines for Christmas.”

So the family decided to go to Epic Universe to see Super Nintendo World for the special birthday trip and notified Universal Guest Services about the child’s disability. They were informed Universal uses facial recognition so all employees would be informed about her autism to help them and that they could get scheduled times to ride attractions to avoid waiting in lines. 

What made the trip also more challenging was Daou’s husband himself was in a wheelchair. He had been hurt in a car crash with a semi-tractor trailer. 

But things have never been easy for the Daous, who have four daughters. They were determined to spoil their soon-to-be-7-year-old for her birthday. If they always stay home, they always miss out, the mother said.

“Our life is constantly in chaos and we just learned to roll with it,” Daou said. 

Saving Super Nintendo World for nighttime, that’s when the trip fell apart inside the gift shop.

“She started slapping her hands and I could tell that a meltdown was about to come on,” Daou said. “In these situations, I try to get in front of them because once she has the meltdown, you can’t stop it at that point.”

Daou’s husband went to check out and buy the keychain. Within a minute of separating, as Daou stood outside the entrance, a security officer tapped her and said, “Excuse me. We saw you didn’t pay for that,” and tried to grab the keychain from the child, according to Daou’s account.

Daou said she tried to explain the misunderstanding and that husband was in line to buy it and her daughter has disabilities. 

“Well, that is not how this works,” the security officer told her, according to Daou who was soon escorted to the security office with the rest of her family.

Adding insult to injury, as they were kicked out of the park, they couldn’t find their parked car.

The next day, instead of going to Universal’s Volcano Bay water park, they drove straight home, her daughter’s birthday celebration ruined.