Support NeoGAF

[MJPIA]

Here's one CEO that did not slip free of the law for his actions.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/21/us-usa-georgia-salmonella-idUSKCN0RL24H20150921

The former owner of a peanut company in Georgia was sentenced to 28 years in prison on Monday for his role in a salmonella outbreak that killed nine people and sickened hundreds, a rare instance of jail time in a food contamination case.

Stewart Parnell, 61, who once oversaw Peanut Corporation of America, and his brother, Michael Parnell, 56, who was a food broker on behalf of the company, were convicted on federal conspiracy charges in September 2014 for knowingly shipping salmonella-tainted peanuts to customers.

Contamination at the company's plant in Blakely, Georgia, led to one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history and forced the company into liquidation.

U.S. District Judge Louis Sands gave Michael Parnell 20 years in prison. Mary Wilkerson, 41, a former quality control manager at the plant who was found guilty of obstruction, was sentenced to five years in prison.

The Justice Department described Stewart Parnell's sentence as the largest in a food safety case.

During the seven-week trial last year, prosecutors said the Parnell brothers covered up the presence of salmonella in the company's peanut products for years, even creating fake certificates showing the products were uncontaminated despite laboratory results showing otherwise.

The Parnells have said they never knowingly endangered customers, and their supporters asked a judge on Monday to show mercy.

An official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testified at the trial that the company's peanut products sickened 714 people in 46 states, including 166 of whom were hospitalized.

Did a search and saw nothing.
Lock if old.

 

[Gallbaro]

Should have contributed to the DNC!

 

[Best Nintendo Fan Ever]

So they spent years faking it instead of fixing it??

 

[smurfx]

good hope he rots in jail. if only other ceo's were held just as accountable for the terrible shit they do.

 

[genjiZERO]

He should get life.

 

[Yagharek]

They should use this as a precedent for prosecuting people from BP, Shell, Lehmann Bros and all sorts.

 

[BertramCooper]

Hopefully some folks from Blue Bell will be joining him soon.

 

[zeemumu]

Ex-CEO puts his tainted nuts on the public.

 

[statham]

Excellent!

Hopefully some folks from Blue Bell will be joining him soon.

oh hell, I've had blue bell Ice cream recently, whats this about?

 

[Tenebrous]

He should get life.

I agree, but 28 years pretty much is life at his age.

 

[Bare Grills]

That's nuts

 

[The Faceless Master]

should be a death penalty case. honestly, this sounds like a terrorist attack.

 

[BertramCooper]

oh hell, I've had blue bell Ice cream recently, whats this about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bell_Creameries#2015_recalls

TL;DR - Blue Bell knowingly distributed ice cream from a plant that contained listeria and three people died.

 

[MJPIA]

So they spent years faking it instead of fixing it??

Looks like it.

Prosecutors were asking for life in prison.
Judge estimated 803 years in prison for his actions but decided that would be inappropriate.

I just discovered the abc article about the case is a lot more in-depth.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/boy-testifies-sentencing-salmonella-peanut-butter-case-33926267
Haven't made many threads so I'm unsure about thread posting ediquette, should I replace the story in the OP with this one or is that frowned upon?

 

[Slime]

And yet GM gets a $900m fine for killing 124 and covering up the cause.

 

[statham]

Hopefully some folks from Blue Bell will be joining him soon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bell_Creameries#2015_recalls

TL;DR - Blue Bell knowingly distributed ice cream from a plant that contained listeria and three people died.

great, send them to jail please.

 

[Bodacious]

Should have contributed to the DNC!

 

[smokeandmirrors]

take away any money he made too.

 

[Maximus.]

So they spent years faking it instead of fixing it??

Some companies find it cheaper to deal with the cover up/consequences, rather than fix or recall the issue.

 

[loki 16]

Good, I wish that they would do this for all rich people that break the law.

 

[SURGEdude]

What an unmitigated cunt. Should get treated like a serial killer since that's what it is. I'm OK with quite a bit of leniency and forgiveness for negligence and disregard of duty. But willful? Fuck this asshole.

Some companies find it cheaper to deal with the cover up/consequences, rather than fix or recall the issue.

Stuff like jail time will go a long ways towards fixing this problem. Even this sociopathic asswipe would have walked the straight and narrow if he'd known his ass was on the line.

 

[Gr1mLock]

Good, I wish that they would do this for all rich people that break the law.

What do you think this is? A Democracy? lol.

 

[Kill3r7]

Some companies find it cheaper to deal with the cover up/consequences, rather than fix or recall the issue.

I will never understand this mindset. Do these folks really think the truth won't come out? I'm surprised the QA director did not receive a longer sentence.

 

[wildfire]

He should get life.

Considering that people did die and he spent years faking it I agree.

 

[SURGEdude]

I will never understand this mindset. Do these folks really think the truth won't come out? I'm surprised the QA director did not receive a longer sentence.

It's like that scene it Fight Club about the car accidents. Companies routinely decide that the hit to their name or cost of lawsuits is less than the cost of recall which will also result in a hit to their name. Then you figure the small chance they get away with it, and it's not a big surprise they do this stuff. Gotta be a really sick person to be OK with that though, even for a CEO/CFO type.

 

[Elfforkusu]

I will never understand this mindset. Do these folks really think the truth won't come out? I'm surprised the QA director did not receive a longer sentence.

No, they expect to make big bucks and then to have quit by the time it comes to light. And for the corporation they left behind to be penalized fiscally, but the humans inside it to not be held accountable by the law.

See the Exxon story that broke over the weekend. The plan usually works.

 

[SURGEdude]

No, they expect to have quit and made big bucks by the time it comes to light, and not be held accountable by the law.

See the Exxon story that broke over the weekend. The plan usually works.

A lot of them settle because they intimidate the person with endless litigation and then tie the payment to a confidentiality clause so that the person they screwed can never talk about it.

 

[Futurematic]

I will never understand this mindset. Do these folks really think the truth won't come out? I'm surprised the QA director did not receive a longer sentence.

Because they have decades of concrete evidence proving that rich people usually don't pay for their crimes.

Heck if I had been worried about the cover-up the last decade of letting torturers and cheating financial engineers go free would be strong evidence that spending a few million in lobbying is a better return on investment then fixing the problem.

Obviously they forgot to buy enough people, but I'm sure they were busy forging ways to kill more people.

 

[Usobuko]

Knowingly selling something that ends up killing 9 people should be rot for life in a cell.

 

[Elfforkusu]

A lot of them settle because they intimidate the person with endless litigation and then tie the payment to a confidentiality clause so that the person they screwed can never talk about it.

Also a good point. A big corporation has a lot of resources (read: $$$) to bully lawsuits down to a more manageable size... and they know it.

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

Unbelievable and despicable. If it was a regular joe/jane, they'd be getting the lethal injection.

 

[ghostofsparta]

Should've been life. What are the odds that he'll do less than 15 in prison?