On Thanksgiving eve, 83-year-old Austin “Jack” DeCoster surrendered to federal prison authorities in Massachusetts, about 40 miles west of Boston.
DeCoster traveled from his home in Turner, ME, about 170 miles north of the “administratively secure” Federal Medical Center – Devens (FMC Devens), a unit of the…
To all the names people have called Austin “Jack” DeCoster — “habitual offender,” “bad egg,” “authoritarian” and “notorious” are among those often mentioned — add one more: “inmate.”
After losing at the federal appellate court level and being unable to obtain sentencing review by the U.S. Supreme Court, the man who once may have been…
The sole question remaining before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals is whether the federal jail sentences imposed on Austin “Jack” DeCoster and Peter DeCoster are lawful in light of the findings at sentences. 
When he sentenced a father and son to three months each, the federal judge in a criminal trial about an egg-related Salmonella outbreak said he was imposing the jail time unless someone could tell him federal law specifically prohibited him from doing so. 
With a 2-1 vote made public Wednesday, a federal appeals panel said…
Two of three judges hearing appeals of the jail sentences handed down to Austin “Jack” DeCoster and Peter DeCoster sounded uncomfortable yesterday with the concept of sending corporate officials to prison for a so-called strict liability case. Lawyers were left arguing whether “this case is that case” or whether, as Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney…
Whether Austin “Jack” and Peter DeCoster can be jailed under Park Doctrine prosecutions — meaning where the government did not have to show they had any knowledge or intent, let alone negligence, regarding food safety infractions involving their businesses — will get a big test starting Monday in St. Louis. The opening briefs from the…
The federal judge who sentenced Austin “Jack” and Peter DeCoster to each serve three months in federal confinement predicted that the two defendants would appeal, and they’ve now proven him correct. The prospect of serving three months at a federal prison camp located on a former college campus in Yankton, SD, or at a county…
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…
The thousands sickened in the 2010 Salmonella outbreak traced to two Iowa egg production facilities received a mixture of good and bad news from the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Victim Notification System last week. In a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Mark W. Bennett granted the government’s motion for a consolidated sentencing hearing for…
