Two days have been set aside this week to resolve remaining pre-sentence issues in the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) criminal case being heard in federal court in Albany, GA. While this is the most significant criminal food safety case to ever be tried in the United States, it’s gone on so long that some…
Former Rancho Employees Charged With 11 Felonies
Straight-up fraud and conspiracy, mostly to get cows with “cancer eye” past USDA inspectors so they could be processed along with healthy animals, were allegedly behind the demise of the Petaluma, CA, slaughterhouse that closed in February during a recall of nearly 9 million pounds of beef. There is no hint in the indictment unsealed…
Path to Illnesses and Deaths Began Five Years Before Salmonella Outbreak
The 52-page Grand Jury indictment of Stewart and Michael Parnell, Samuel Lightsey and Mary Wilkerson tells us a lot more than we knew about now-liquidated Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). The indictment of the four former PCA officials marks a new chapter in the four-year-old drama. It turns to a new page, one involving conspiracy…
Grand Jury Indicts Meat Company Owners in Nebraska
A federal grand jury in Nebraska has indicted Paul Rosberg, 61, and Kelly Rosberg, 44, on six counts stemming from the sale of misbranded and/or non-inspected meat and meat products to Omaha Public Schools. The couple are from Wausa, NE. 
If convicted, each could be sentenced to 3 to 5 years in federal prison, and…
Felony Indictment Charges Four in Tainted Cheese Conspiracy
A federal grand jury in Chicago has returned a six-count indictment against four individuals, alleging they were involved in a 2007 scheme to ship more than 110,000 pounds of contaminated Mexican-style cheese.
The indictment does not claim that the cheese caused human illnesses or other public health consequences, according to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S.…
Mislabeled Chinese Honey Leads to Criminal Busts
After a four-month investigation, federal authorities have indicted yet another group of importers for allegedly smuggling Chinese honey into the U.S.
Since September, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection have seized more than 5 million pounds of intentionally mislabeled Chinese honey at customs warehouses …