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Subscribe to RSSA federal grand jury indicted four employees of a peanut company linked to a 2009 salmonella outbreak that killed nine people and sickened hundreds.
The indictment was unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Georgia and charges four employees with Virginia-based Peanut Corp. of America. The charges include conspiracy, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and others related to contaminated or misbranded food.
Named in the indictment were company owner Stewart Parnell, his brother and company vice president Michael Parnell, Georgia plant manager Samuel Lightsey and Georgia plant quality assurance manager Mary Wilkerson.
The recall of Peanut Corp.'s peanut products was one of the largest in history. FDA inspectors found remarkably bad conditions inside Parnell's processing plant in Blakely, Ga., including mold and roaches.
The indictment accused the Parnells and Lightsey of conspiring to defraud customers and obtain money through false and fraudulent pretenses. Wilkerson was charged with obstruction of justice.
The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment until after a news conference later Thursday.
The indictment alleged the conspiracy lasted from about June 2003 through February 2009. The indictment said peanut products were shipped after it tested positive for salmonella, and the company failed to inform customers.
Stewart Parnell, who invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before Congress in February 2009, once directed employees to "turn them loose" after samples of peanuts had tested positive for salmonella and then were cleared in a second test, according to e-mails uncovered at the time by congressional investigators.
The indictment cited emails sent between defendants talking about the contamination in the product.
A federal judge in 2010 approved a $12 million insurance settlement for more than 100 salmonella victims.
Even President Barack Obama expressed concern at the height of the product recalls, noting that his daughter Sasha eats peanut butter for lunch as often as three times a week.
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We need more health food stores
....how about some concern for the economy?
That plant in New Mexico that has the same issue is an organic peanut butter maker. We need more eithical people not more controls.
Who can argue with the idea of needing more ethical people? Good luck finding them. While there are many who are driven by the idea of "doing the right thing" there are many more who are not. It is for the later group that we need regulation and law. Regulation and law is the only thing that protects the rest of us from them.
Here's hoping all four do hard time, and get stripped naked of all assets while they're at it. The cost for putting profits before public health should be steep....
It's about time. They should get the book thrown at them.
Can you imagine how vulnerable our food is? So many people who handle it are not clean and do not care. Don't ever think of buying any chinese-made food products. They're full of DDT and harmful chemicals. All of it.
They should be made to eat their own polluted product!
add mouse dropings to make them feel good.
Roy,
You don't need to add them, they are included at no extra cost - except your life!
Man we have to put ours & our kids (health) fate into those food workers & obviously there are some that dont give a @!$%# about unsuspecting people who trust our food!!!
Grand juries rarely hear defensive evidence. The Department of inJustice has a poor track record all around. So take this story with a grain of salt. You can make your own peanut butter. George Washington Carver did.