Brothers Stewart and Michael Parnell will not be released on bond pending the outcome of their appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta ruled. Judges for the Circuit, however, did on Jan. 8 grant the Parnell brothers more time to file their appellant briefs. The briefs are now due 40 days after the transcript is filed for a Jan. 26 restitution hearing before U.S. District Court Judge W. Louis Sands in Albany, Ga. atlantacourtofappeals_406x250Sands was the trial court judge who presided over the 2014 jury trial that ended with the convictions the Parnell brothers and Mary Wilkerson, who managed quality control at the Peanut Corp. of America (PCA) processing plant in Blakely, GA. Wilkerson was also denied release pending appeal before she reported to a federal woman’s person in Florida in early November. She and the Parnell brothers are appealing both their convictions and sentences imposed by Sands. The restitution hearing, involving former peanut plant managers Samuel Lightsey and Daniel Kilgore along with the Parnell brothers, is the last piece of work for the district court to complete in the PCA-related criminal proceedings that began three years ago. Lightsey and Kilgore entered guilty pleas before the trial and testified for the government. The Jan. 26 restitution hearing will not be a reunion of all the PCA defendants. Wilkerson is excluded because her conviction on a single count of obstruction of justice was over her statements during the investigation, not during ongoing criminal enterprise. And Sands has agreed to excuse peanut broker Michael Parnell from attending personally. His lawyers will attend. Samuel Lightsey, the Blakely plant manager, has also asked to be excused because he does not want to delay his transfer from the Grady County, Okla., correctional facility to the federal prison in Atlanta. That leaves Stewart Parnell, the former owner and chief executive of the now defunct PCA , and Daniel Kilgore, who was PCA’s operations manager at Blakely, to attend the restitution hearing. Stewart Parnell was sentenced to 28 years in prison Sept. 21, 2015, for his convictions on 71 federal felony counts including conspiracy, interstate shipments fraud, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and using interstate commerce for shipments of contaminated and misbranded food. At the same time, Michael Parnell was sentenced to 20 years for his convictions on 60 federal felony counts, also including wire fraud, interstate shipments fraud, conspiracy and using interstate commerce for shipments of misbranded food. Kilgore was sentenced to six years, Wilkerson to five, and Lightsey to three for their roles in the PCA criminal litigation. The PCA managers and broker were indicted in February 2013 after a four year investigation led by the FBI into the 2008-09 Salmonella outbreak, which was blamed on contaminated peanut butter and peanut paste from the Blakely pant that sickened thousands of consumers. Nine deaths were also blamed on the outbreak. When restitution came up during the pre-sentencing hearing, testimony focused both on damages suffered by outbreak victims and the financial losses experienced by PCA customers who were forced to recall and replace products made with the contaminated peanut butter. Almost 4,000 products with PCA-supplied peanut butter or paste were recalled. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)