Six years ago, federal regulators fingered a peanut processing company as the cause of one of the largest salmonella outbreaks in American history. It turned out that the company’s owner knew he was shipping contaminated peanuts and did absolutely nothing. The result was one of the largest food recalls in this country’s history. Now, federal prosecutors want the company’s owner to spend the rest of his life in prison.
In January 2009, the FDA announced that Peanut Corporation of America was the cause of a massive salmonella outbreak that had started in late 2008. The company supplied peanut butter and paste to food manufacturers and distributors. It was ultimately estimated that 714 people in 46 states were sickened, and nine of them died. The FDA initially pointed the finger at PCA’s plant in Blakely, Georgia. However, serious sanitation problems were later found at PCA plants in Plainview, Texas and Suffolk, Virginia. The company was all but forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in February 2009.
In 2013, company president Stewart Parnell was indicted on charges of knowingly shipping salmonella-tainted products out of his plants. He was convicted on all charges in September 2014 along with his brother Charles and quality assurance chief Mary Wilkerson, and is due to be sentenced this fall. Earlier this week, prosecutors filed a brief from the United States Probation Office recommending that Parnell get a life sentence–something that even prosecutors called “unprecedented.” However, the trial itself was without precedent; it is believed to be the first time such high-ranking executives have ever been brought up on criminal charges for food poisoning.
Parnell’s lawyers think a life sentence would be “absurd.” However, anyone who reads the indictment and the coverage of the outbreak would be hard pressed to believe this sentence is being too harsh. PCA had a bad habit of shipping peanut products before getting confirmation that they were free of salmonella.
Even worse, Parnell was aware that products were being shipped that had tested positive for salmonella. According to food safety experts, if peanut butter tests positive for salmonella, it should be destroyed out of an abundance of caution, even if a re-test finds no contamination. Whenever any of his products tested for salmonella, Parnell would engage in “lab-shopping” until he found a lab that “confirmed” the peanuts were safe.
Sammy Lightsey, the manager of the Blakely plant, testified that he discovered problems soon after coming to Georgia. He learned the plant was shipping out products on the day they rolled off the line, even though it can take 48 hours to test for salmonella. Even worse, the plant was shipping them with negative lab results from batches tested a week earlier. According to Lightsey, Parnell told him that it had been “set up” long before Lightsey arrived, and that he didn’t have to worry about any potential complaints from customers. Lightsey had originally been indicted for his role in the debacle, but turned state’s evidence in return for a lighter sentence.
The conditions in PCA’s plants would turn even the strongest stomachs. Former employees at the Georgia plant recalled seeing baby mice inside totes of peanuts, puddles of water inside the plant after heavy rain, and rats and roaches dry-roasting with the peanuts. The Texas plant had a leaky roof and was infested with rodents. The former manager of the Texas plant, Kenneth Kendrick, told “Good Morning America” in 2009 that he repeatedly complained to Parnell about the unsanitary conditions, but Parnell refused to spend a penny for repairs even though bird feces frequently washed in off the roof.
David Brooks, a buyer for a snack-food company, said in 2009 that he’d inspected a PCA plant three times in the 1980s while considering whether to buy its products. Each time, he found “just filthy” conditions. He said it was an open secret among peanut industry insiders that PCA was a “time bomb.” That bomb nearly exploded twice in the 1990s, when customers complained of toxic mold in PCA products. Small wonder that Parnell famously pleaded the Fifth several times when he testified before Congress about the outbreak in February 2009.
Theodore Labuza, a food safety expert at the University of Minnesota, thinks that a life sentence is more than justified for Parnell because “he said ‘ship it, because we need the money'” even though he knew he was shipping tainted products. I have to agree. Combine the falsifying of test results with knowingly allowing disgusting conditions to continue at his plants, and you can only conclude that Parnell cannot ever be allowed to live among us again.
