Update on Sentences for PCA Executives Who Sold Contaminated Peanut Butter

Food Safety News, the website sponsored by food safety lawyer Bill Marler, has an update on the convicted PCA executives, primarily Mary Wilkerson, the QA Manager who received five years in prison for her involvement.  She was charged with obstruction of justice in that she was not forthcoming about the crimes committed when the company knowingly shipped Salmonella peanut butter and forged COAs.

Five years is a long time to be locked away from family, friends, and freedom.  And for what?  Helping a dope of an owner make more money selling dangerous product rather than fixing the issue.

https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2019/01/pcas-victims-learn-the-next-stop-for-mary-wilkerson-is-a-macon-ga-half-way-house/
PCA’s victims learn the next stop for Mary Wilkerson is a Macon, GA half-way house
By Dan Flynn on January 31, 2019


Mary Wilkerson, the unlucky 45-year old former Peanut Corporation of America quality manager for control is getting out of the federal prison in Tallahassee, FL.

Wilkerson is serving five years for a jury conviction of obstruction of justice. She is not eligible for parole. Her release date is March 10, 2020.

But the federal Department of Justice has recently told victims of the multistate Salmonella outbreak and their families that Wilkerson will be leaving the Florida prison on Sept. 17, 2019, and transferred to a Macon, GA half-way house ran by Dismas Charities Inc.

The Macon half-way house is located less than 150 miles from Wilkerson’s home in Edison, GA. After release, she will remain under supervision for a time by the U.S. Probation Office in Albany, GA.

Wilkerson will be the second of the five PCA managers and executives who were either convicted by a jury or plead guilty to crimes related to the salmonella outbreak that sicked thousands and killed at least nine.

PCA’s former plant manager in Blakely, GA, Samuel Lightsey, served the shortest time and was released on Sept. 29, 2017. Lightsey cut a deal with the government that saw him become the prosecution’s star witness in the jury trial.

...

Wilkerson was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. Both were so-called “process crimes” involving statements to federal officers who investigated PCA’s role in the outbreak for four years before bringing charges. Wilkerson was acquitted on one of the two counts.

That did not get her a break at sentencing, however, as the maximum five-year sentence was imposed.

For rest of article - https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2019/01/pcas-victims-learn-the-next-stop-for-mary-wilkerson-is-a-macon-ga-half-way-house/