Dirty Deeds: Recent Food Safety Crimes from Modern Farmer

This is reprinted from Modern Farmer and thought it a nice summary of recent cases where company owners received prison sentences for shipping tainted product.  The reasons listed below are a little short in terms of the details, but it is a nice review.

Modern Farmer
https://modernfarmer.com/2017/09/dirty-deeds-recent-food-safety-crimes/
Dirty Deeds: Recent Food Safety Crimes
By Brian Barth on September 20, 2017
This story originally appeared as a sidebar to “Navigating the FDA’s Food Safety Maze,” from the Fall 2017 issue of Modern Farmer. The introduction has been modified for the web.

Cantaloupe growers Eric and Ryan Jensen were arrested in 2013 for being the source of a listeria outbreak that sickened 147 people and killed 33—the most deadly case of foodborne illness in the U.S, since 1925. The brothers served six months of home detention and paid $300,000 in restitution, but they’re not the only food producers to answer to the law—owners and executives of multiple dairy, egg and livestock operations have been imprisoned. As you’ll see below, these scoundrels probably deserved it.

THE CRIMINAL Austin “Jack” DeCoster, owner of Quality Egg in Alden, Iowa
THE CRIME Salmonella-infected eggs sickened 2,000 people in 2010.
THE SENTENCE 3 months in prison
THE DETAILS The company changed its expiration dates to make the eggs seem fresher

THE CRIMINAL Christian Rivas, owner of the Oasis Brands cheese company in Miami
THE CRIME Mexican-style soft cheeses contaminated with listeria sickened ve people, killing one, in 2014. 

THE SENTENCE 15 months in prison
THE DETAILS Rivas admitted to knowingly shipping contaminated cheese.

THE CRIMINAL Jesse “Babe” Amaral Jr., owner of the Rancho Feeding slaughterhouse in Petaluma, California
THE CRIME Rancho Feeding sold meat from 180 diseased cattle in 2013.
THE SENTENCE 1 year in prison
THE DETAILS The defendant attempted to deceive inspectors by carving “USDA Condemned” stamps out of cattle carcasses and switching the heads of cows who surffered from eye cancer with those of healthier-looking animals.

THE CRIMINAL Stewart Parnell, CEO of the Peanut Corporation of America in Lynchburg, Virginia
THE CRIME Peanut products tainted with salmonella sickened 705 people and killed nine between 2008 and 2009.
THE SENTENCE 28 years in prison
THE DETAILS An email from Parnell showed that he refused to delay an order to await salmonella test results. “Just ship it,” he wrote to one of his plant managers.