His company’s guilty plea for bribing a USDA egg inspector is costing Austin (Jack) DeCoster’s Quality Egg,LLC an extra $10,000. U.S. District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett has signed a preliminary order of forfeiture ordering Quality Egg, LLC to pay $10,000 “representing proceeds derived from the illegal activity committed by the defendant.” Quality Egg, LLC in June pleaded guilty to one count of bribing a federal official, a felony and the two misdemeanors for selling both misbranded and adulterated eggs. It was part of the plea bargain that included both Jack and son Peter DeCoster each also pleading guilty to single misdemeanors. Both men and Quality Egg, LLC are scheduled to be sentenced in February. Quality Egg is expected to pay a $6.8 million fine, and the plea agreement has each of the DeCosters paying individual fines of $100,000 each. Bennett signed the $10,000 cash forfeiture order on Nov. 18, the same day it was requested by the U.S. Attorney for Northern Iowa. A preliminary order of forfeiture becomes final at sentencing. The defendants will be sentenced after an evidentiary hearing that will begin on Feb. 9, 2015. Sentencing has become tangled in a dispute over whether it can include any jail time for the two men. They’ve pleaded guilty under a so-called “strict liability” misdemeanor. Their attorneys argue it would be unconstitutional to jail corporation officials for merely taking responsibility for a company’s bad acts when they have no actual knowledge or intent concerning it. The case against Quality Egg, LLC and the DeCosters was filed after a federal investigation into the 2010 Salmonella outbreak that was traced to two Iowa egg farms they owned. During that event they recalled over one-half million shell eggs, the largest such recall in U.S. history.